Instituting The Past: The inner mechanics of the PMI Victorian History Library
Instituting The Past: The inner mechanics of the PMI Victorian History Library is a blog from the members and staff of the PMI Victorian History Library.
For the last 170 years we have been a community owned and run library specialising in the history of Victoria, Australia. The library collection is the only lending collection of its kind in Australia – with over 30,000 books for loan and over 40,000 items on site, including titles that are unavailable elsewhere.
This blog contains news about the library and research happening within it’s walls. We have everything from professional historians, to fiction writers, to architects and family historians visiting us, so this blog will always have something interesting. We also include book reviews from both our members and our staff.
We hope you enjoy Instituting The Past and if you’re interested in the library come down and say hello, our professional staff are always happy to help with any historical queries you might have.
Meet Our Patron: Janet McCalman
Janet is an emeritus professor at the University of Melbourne and is the author of four award-winning social histories: Struggletown (1984), Journeyings (1993), Sex and Suffering (1998) and Vandemonians (2020).
Meet Our Patron: Susan Lawrence
Susan teaches archaeology at La Trobe University. Her expertise is in the archaeology of resource extraction, British colonialism, gender and urbanisation. Susan is the author of over 100 peer-reviewed articles and chapters and seven books, many of them about the archaeology of the gold rush.Â
Collection Spotlight: Historical perspectives of transgender Victorians
To celebrate pride month this year, we’re taking a look at a small selection of resources by and about transgender Victorians in our catalogue, and taking a quick stroll through the rich history they document! Follow along as we discuss some of these recent acquisitions in our latest PMI blog post.
Meet Our Board: Stephen Rollestone
A strategic creative professional focused on helping organisations turn purpose into clear, meaningful action across brand, marketing, and digital, with a strong commitment to supporting mission-driven and community organisations.
Picturing the Past: Graphic Novels at the PMI Library
Did you know that we have graphic novels at the PMI Library? Graphic novels are an increasingly popular format due to their highly visual nature, which makes them more accessible for those who have less time or are still developing their literacy skills.
Graphic novels and comics are spread across multiple collections within the PMI Library, from general fiction to various nonfiction topics, so with Lee Lai’s Cannon recently becoming the first graphic novel to win the Stella Prize, we thought we’d introduce you to some of the other graphic novels that can be found in our library.