Congratulations to Donald Kerr for the elegant feature piece in this weekend’s Otago Daily Times.  For those who missed it, you can read it here, and place your order now for Donald’s new biography of Hocken, due to be launched at the end of this month, but orders gladly taken now.

Hot on the heels of the Writers and Readers Festival comes the NZ Young Writers Festival, from 4–7 June, under the auspices of the Dunedin Fringe.  All events are free and the programme may be found here.  The session on “Working with Editors” looks especially interesting for fans of the Centre for the Book, but there should be lots of interesting possibilities, and we are delighted to welcome this addition to the string of events that enrich our City of Literature.

Brendan O’Brien of Fernbank Press in Wellington returns to Dunedin this July as University Library Printer in Residence.  This year’s project is a limited edition of 100 copies of 18 poems and epigrams translated from the fourth-century Greek Anthology by the current poet laureate, Vincent O’Sullivan with illustrations by Barry Cleavin, one of New Zealand’s best known artist-engravers.  Entitled Οκτωκαιδεκα, the collection includes a mixture of erotic, comic and lyric verses.

When not handprinting, Brendan is curatorial technician in the Conservation Department of the Alexander Turnbull Library.  He was last here as Printer in Residence in 2005, when he printed Ralph Hotere’s PINE and Joanna Paul’s access to lilac.

Any enquiries, please contact Donald Kerr, Special Collections Librarian, University of Otago:  Donald.kerr@otago.ac.nz

The Centre is very pleased to announce the imminent publication of Donald Kerr’s new biography, Hocken: Prince of Collectors, to be launched on 25 June at the Hocken Collections.  The biography focuses in particular on Hocken’s activities as an assiduous collector of all materials relating to early New Zealand, but also presents new stories and details of the life of an impressive early Dunedin figure. Order your copy now.

The annual Centre for the Book symposium has been scheduled for Thursday 12 November to Friday 13 November.  The full call for papers is available here, with abstracts due no later than 3 August 2015.  We hope the theme will provoke lots of engaging contributions and look forward to seeing many of you at both the public lecture by Julia Marshall and at the day of research papers.

The Centre for the Book is pleased to have the opportunity to hear from Prof. Carol Neel about her extensive experience with books and a teaching press at Colorado College, where she is a professor of History.  A European medievalist, she has published chiefly in the history of spiritual and family life.  Neel’s interest in medieval manuscripts has led to a long relationship with her institution’s limited edition studio, the Press at Colorado College. Her talk for the Centre for the Book will address the making of books as an interdisciplinary teaching tool.

Carol’s talk will take place on Thursday, 16 April at 5:15 pm in Cen3 of the Central Library, University of Otago.  Drinks and nibbles will be served.  We hope you can join us.

Anyone with an interest in the Alexander Turnbull Library or in fine press printing should check out Ruth Lightbourne’s new guides on those topics at the National Library website.  In addition to being highly informative, they are a delight to look at, as this image from Brendan O’Brien’s Magnolia Tree shows.

Don’t let the cold keep you at home–book now and enjoy the warm glow of anticipation. The programme for the Dunedin Writers and Readers Festival is now available, with an exciting line-up of well-known authors and events to fill the week of 5–10 May.  With the Regent Book Sale less than a fortnight later, May is becoming quite a bookish month in Dunedin.

For those who missed Lyall Hanton’s excellent lecture on Joseph Mellor, you can now enjoy a video of the occasion.  The file is c. 90MB.  Enjoy.

19-Feb-2015 The World of Joseph Mellor-H264 VBR 4×3 TTW

The latest Special Collections exhibition, “Aliens, Androids & Unicorns. The Hal Salive Science Fiction and Fantasy Collection” opened last Thursday in the de Beer Gallery, Central Library, Dunedin. It runs to 29 May 2015, so if you are visiting Dunedin during this time, please drop in. The de Beer Gallery is open 8.30 to 5.00 Monday to Friday; 1st floor Central University Library.

All those favourite works by Van Vogt, Delany, Jack Williamson, Ursula Le Guin, Jack Chalker and many others, are on display. Another feature is the amazing run of Astounding Stories, many pre-1949. Please pass this on to those other interested parties who relish science fiction and fantasy.

Harold Terrence Salive (1939-2012) was an academic, inventor, and keen collector.  In March 2013 his widow Rachel arranged to donate the collection to Otago, where it now complements the Fastier collection featured in a previous exhibition.  We are delighted to be able to showcase another aspect of the weird and wonderful world of science fiction.