Professor Michael Twyman: the long-term significance of ephemera.

Holmes, Robyn

Cover of Anzac Day Commemoration Program, 25 April 1916 (Sydney: Carter's Print, 1916)

John Rogers Had I a Boat on Some Fairy Stream (Sydney: T. Rolfe, c.1840) nla.mus-vn3790219

Paolo Giorza and E. Cyril Haviland Land of the Sunny South, All Hail (Sydney: Elvy & Co., c.1879) nla.mus-an5443739

The public was treated to a veritable gallery of printed ephemera from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, ranging across the languages and styles of Europe, in a fascinating and provocative illustrated talk, 'The Long-term Significance of Ephemera' by Professor Michael Twyman, held at the National Library on 6 February 2008.

Professor Twyman is a distinguished international scholar in the history of printing, lithography, graphic communication and ephemera. He was the guest of the National Library for two days prior to teaching a course on 'Lithography: The Popularisation of Printing in the Nineteenth Century' at the Fourth Australia and New Zealand Rare Book Summer School in Melbourne from 11 to 15 February. Professor Tywman was Professor of Typography & Graphic Communication at the University of Reading until his retirement in 1998 and he remains Director of Ephemera Studies. His books include Printing 1770 to 1970, The British Library Guide to Printing, Lithography 1800-1850, Early Lithographed Books, Early Lithographed Music, Breaking the Mould: The First Hundred Years of Lithography, and the editing and completion of Maurice Rickards' Encyclopedia of Ephemera.

In posing the question why libraries, museums and archives should collect ephemera, Professor Twyman presented persuasive evidence of its importance as a tool in historical research. Not only does the content provide evidence of historical events and everyday social life, customs, products and language, it also provides striking evidence for patterns of reading, thinking and communicating. His careful analysis of historical design and printing via many illustrations even showed how the diversity of fonts and graphical information have come to inhabit digital communication today through their transformation from the world of ephemera.

The message for our own libraries was loud and clear! Collect our nation's ephemera or stand to lose a whole world of Australian social and communication history. Professor Twyman cited the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera at the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford as a remarkable example of a comprehensive collection of ephemera, with over 1 000 000 items from the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but also including items dating back to 1508. There is an ongoing digitisation plan, with some images already online at www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/johnson/johnson.htm. There was a time when the Bodleian, like many research libraries, thought that such a collection was unworthy of preservation!

The audience also excitedly viewed first-hand a selection of artefacts from the National Library's own ephemera collections, including the recent gift from the Canadian Government of the earliest extant Australian imprint, the Jane Shore Playbill, dated 30 July 1796, and Botany Bay Boys, a 1789 satirical handbill. Other items included transportation broadsides from 1829, a German language broadside announcing an Aboriginal Australian on exhibition in Berlin (1831-1834), dance cards from 1891, a poster of Opperman's Malvern Star bicycle (Sydney 1934), wine labels from the Sydney Olympics sponsors, a needle book from the Sydney Harbour Bridge opening (1932), 1916/1917 conscription referendum flyers, a 1916 ANZAC Day Commemoration program, and an 1880 design catalogue of furniture, bedsteads and pianos (Melbourne).

Earlier, Professor Twyman had provided invaluable professional guidance to our specialist curators through his examination of items of early Australian lithography from music, maps, pictures and printed collections. We were also pleased to welcome members of staff from the State Library of New South Wales and the University of Sydney. Professor Twyman's ability to bring in-depth scholarly reading of the artefact--its printing techniques, typography and notation and graphic design--together with his knowledge of the content and social context, provided a rare opportunity for professional development for Library staff in dating, describing and valuing items for which there is little other known historical evidence.

The Library was particularly grateful for the assistance of musicologists and Petherick Readers, Drs Michael and Jamie Kassler, in facilitating the visit of Professor Twyman. The open dialogue between Professor Twyman and Dr Michael Kassler about detailed aspects of music printed in Australia in the 1840s provided a scintillating case study of the value of synthesising expertise in the history of printing with historical research in music.

Robyn Holmes

Curator of Music