A quick reminder that Fryer Library is closed on Monday, October 7 2013, for the Labour Day Public holiday. You can check the opening hours for all UQ Libraries online.

This photo was one of seven recently donated to Fryer Library, each depicting railway related history from Queensland. The elephants belonged to Wirths' Circus, which travelled Australia by train from the earliest days of the railways in the 1880s up until the circus' demise in 1963.

The 2013 Fryer Award winner, Dr William Hatherell, will present the first results of his current research at an EMSAH seminar this Friday, September 20.

Dr Hatherell's research focuses on Professor JJ Stable and Associate Professor FW Robinson ('Doc Robbie'), the two leading figures in the establishment of English as a university discipline in Queensland through their pioneering work at the University of Queensland from the 1920s to the 1950s.

The Fryer Library's collections of Queensland political organisations and student activists groups are supported by a growing collection of 'ephemera', which is library-speak for written or printed material that is usually created for a short-term purpose.

Political ephemera collected by Fryer ranges from how to vote cards, posters, buttons, bumper stickers, and t-shirts, to a newly acquired Kevin Rudd tote bag. These collections are still referred to as the 'Fryer Vertical Files' (FVFs), a reference to the filing cabinets they were once stored in.

The Fryer Library has a new website and we want to know what you think about the changes.

The new website aims to make it much easier to find information about visiting Fryer, the collections, and our community.

Fryer Library's collections provide many opportunities to examine the Queensland sugar industry's labour issues and to catch an arresting glimpse into the lives of South Sea Islanders at home and in Australia. 2013 marks the 150th anniversary of the first arrival of South Sea Islanders in Queensland to provide low paid, indentured labour for the new state's fledgling primary industries, notably sugar and cotton.

June is the final month for entries in The Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize 2013, administered by the University of Southern Queensland. So for our June collection spotlight, biographer Stephany Steggall explores Fryer's Bruce Dawe papers...

During the week beginning 3 June, Fryer Library will be working with a moving company to relocate over 1500 boxes of manuscript material to a new store, located at the Gatton campus. We have taken this step due to space constraints, especially as our collections continue to grow.

During the move, there will be some delays in accessing materials, while the movers are working.

For this month's Collection Spotlight, guest writer, Sue Bell, shares her experiences of researching her great-grandmother's letters in the Fryer Library's collection.

Records of women's lives in the 19th century are very sparse in comparison with those of men or at least 'important' men. Women were usually invisible with few or no signs that they had lived and even wives of 'important' men were only recorded when they were attending social occasions or accompanying their husbands to events.

There is still time for UQ postgraduates and staff to book a place at Doing archival research in the Arts: an introduction. The class is being held next Tuesday, 16th of April at the St Lucia Campus.

Presented by Fryer librarians, the class provides an overview of archival research procedures and methods for Arts scholars. It covers Australian collecting institutions to know about, the difference between archives and libraries, general reading room protocols, rules for copying unpublished material, tips for conducting primary research, and useful online sources.