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Keywords: Libraries

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    When poetry became war reporting

    • Warwick McFadyen
    • 16 October 2024

    If only those who send their nation’s youth to war would read Muse of Fire, World War I as seen Through the Lives of the Soldier Poets. It is both homage and horror story. It carries the reader across several fronts – the disparate journeys that led these men to the killing fields of Europe, the blood-soaked chrysalis from which the words of the war poets arose.

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  • RELIGION

    I am pilgrim

    • Ann Rennie
    • 13 September 2024

    People visit graves and castles, libraries and mansions, battlefields and places of historical significance to feel a little of the lives of others, to pay homage, to make that human connection. We make secular pilgrimages to places that we have dreamt about or read in books or seen on screen. Wherever we go, these are ultimately visits to places within.  

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Digital discrimination

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 04 July 2024

    Digital dominance and the disappearance of print newspapers leaves older generations grappling with endless new tech. I still seek the tactile experience of newsprint — a challenge as publications move online. In an increasingly automated world, I’m not alone in reminiscing about the days when personal interactions were the norm.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Taller when prone: The contradictions of Les Murray

    • Paul Mitchell
    • 10 May 2024

    Les Murray once confessed it was his mission to 'irritate the hell out of the eloquent who would oppress my people,' by being a paradox that their categories can’t assimilate: the Subhuman Redneck who writes poems. And therein lies the ‘poem’ of Les Murray: complex, contradictory, sublime, and sometimes ready to whip his enemies with a scorpion’s tail.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The geography of loneliness

    • John Chesterman and Ilan Wiesel
    • 01 March 2024
    1 Comment

    The key to combatting increasing levels of loneliness and social isolation will likely start in the way we think about cities, public spaces and social care to enable meaningful connections between people, and help to guard against harms caused by habitual loneliness. But we'll need to get creative.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Referendums and reading lists reveal similar societal anxieties

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 04 October 2023
    4 Comments

    An examination of school reading lists and libraries unveils striking parallels with the debates and concerns surrounding the Referendum, highlighting the pervasive societal anxieties and the intricate interplay of national identity and values, and the ongoing need for empathy. 

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  • RELIGION

    Must suppression bring on depression?

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 17 August 2023
    4 Comments

    Despite taking place 250 years ago, the Jesuit Suppression remains a deeply felt experience. Today, as exiles shape headlines, this chapter in Jesuit history poses a resonant question: How does a faith community endure and evolve when its very existence is challenged by the authority it holds sacred?

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Undeterred by Kondo, let your library overflow

    • Philip Harvey
    • 20 July 2023
    6 Comments

    It's all very well to remove excess furniture, but furniture is not books. How many chairs does one need? Chairs are not books. To reduce a library as a household expedience is to objectify the books. Their contents are emptied of value, their history relegated to out-of-date. They have no more meaning than books in an Ikea display room. (From 2019)

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    In praise of libraries

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 01 May 2023
    2 Comments

    As the world moves towards digitalisation, the importance of physical libraries is increasingly being questioned. But as local libraries struggle with underfunding and centralisation, the question remains: where else have we found their equivalent today?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Grappling with AI

    • Michael McVeigh
    • 15 February 2023
    1 Comment

    As the AI revolution begins, the question publishers must consider is how to integrate AI as a tool that enhances human skills and wisdom without replacing them. Ultimately, the goal should be to make our contribution to society more human, not less.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Critical issues

    • Kate Moriarty
    • 07 February 2023
    2 Comments

    Do you get imposter thoughts? Do you have an inner critic who has nasty things to say whenever you set out to create? You're not alone. If you are looking for a fun activity that will bring you into constant confrontation with your inner critic, write a novel. I did, and here’s what I learnt along the way.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Opening up the world: The Utopian vision of Cole’s Book Arcade

    • Cherie Gilmour
    • 19 April 2022
    6 Comments

    Edward Cole understood that books encouraged community. The businessman could rub shoulders with the tramp in his Arcade. Now, in an age of division and isolation, more than ever we need spaces which facilitate community; light-filled cathedrals dedicated to the love of knowledge and stories, and their power to cross borders, politically, ideologically and culturally.

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