Melbourne Rare Book Week is coming to a close, but there are still a lot of events between now and Sunday.
My day started at Museums Victoria for Marketing and promotion of rare books and special collections. Three librarians Gemma Steele, Daniel Wee & Nicole Kearney outlined different aspects of communicating with the public about their collections. Gemma Steele discussed research she conducted in 2018 on marketing and promotion of special libraries and collections. Daniel Wee talked about personal branding in the age of social media, and his experiences in running his Instagram account with 40,000 followers. Nicole Kearney focused on the Biodiversity Heritage Library digitization project, and its possibilities for contributing organisations. It was a slightly different group of people in the audience today and I am assuming lots of librarians, including myself.
Legal Luminaries and their Books . Law Library of Victoria. Held in the iconic Supreme Court Library, this session celebrates the richness of the written word and the beauty of the book. Presentations by Justice Cameron on Emily Dickinson, Solicitor, Tim Finlay spoke on his personal book collection, from Biggles to Thomas More. Law Library of Victoria Director and Supreme Court Librarian, Laurie Atkinson highlighted some of the historic books in the collection. The audience was then invited into her office which is the the Classics Room, with its ceiling height shelves of of books, library ladders and classic books purchased in the nineteenth century..
Ten Enemies of Books at Melbourne Museum presented by Alice Cannon. Flood waters, flames, ultraviolet light, and absent-mindedness: what do all of these things have in common? They are all enemies of books. Conservator Alice Cannon discussed how books can be lost, destroyed, damaged and saved. The talk was accompanied by a small display of damaged books from the Museum’s library. A fascinating presentation for people who have books on their shelves.
Very interesting topics discussed at each event and some more excellent sketches.
I’m curious… I noticed that in your reportage sketches, you tend to draw the people with ink and the background with watercolor pencils. Is this mainly a stylistic choice, or do you have a reason for not drawing the people with color?
I think that I was trying to get a consistent style over the week and yet at the same time give myself the option of making the pages and each event look different. If the event was in a lovely room I would try and feature the room with colours. If I arrived early I would sketch the room and add the colour until everyone had settled them selves and then draw the people in to fit. I am not sure why I did not start and use colour for people. perhaps it was the knowledge that I only had 45 min to one hour to capture the event and changing pencils would interrupt the flow.
I think you were very successful in achieving a consistent look, and all of your compositions are wonderful! Thanks for your response — I was just curious because for things that are moving and changing fast, like people, I do tend to use one implement (one pen or one colored pencil) simple for expediency. It’s much easier to take the time to focus on colors for stationery objects.