Queensland Library Foundation projects

JOL Fellowship

The John Oxley Library Fellowship allows recipients the rare opportunity to fully immerse themselves in their chosen historical research for a period of 12 months within the John Oxley Library. The Fellowship was established with generous support from the Queensland Library Foundation to encourage research into Queensland's history by giving recipients direct access to the immense resources of the John Oxley Library. It is now in its seventh year.

The winner of the 2012 JOL Fellowship is Don Watson.

John Oxley Library Community History Award

In 2010 the Foundation funded the inaugural $5,000 John Oxley Library Community History Award which recognises excellence and innovation in the recording of Queensland history by individuals and local community organisations. The Award recognises the rich history of Queensland's diverse communities, and seeks to encourage the communication of those histories in varied formats such as print or online publication, exhibition, website, multimedia presentation, walk, tour, register or records.

The winner of the 2012 John Oxley Community History Award is Cardwell & District Historical Society for its efforts to record the events of Cyclone Yasi, despite its own museum being destroyed by the cyclone.

Siganto Foundation Fellowship

The Australian Library of Art (ALA) is an internationally renowned State Library collection and research tool for artists, writers, designers, bookbinders, collectors, filmmakers, researchers, historians and botanists. In 2012 State Library will provide increased access to the Australian Library of Art collection through the Siganto Foundation Fellowship. The Fellowship will allow the successful applicant to search through the ALA, assisted by State Library staff.

The Siganto Foundation is also supporting a biennial artists' bookmaking workshop to be held in 2012, 2014 and 2016.

The inaugural workshop was held from 28 May to 1 June and was conducted by internationally renowned New York book artists Keith Smith and Scott McCarney.

Nielson Design lecture

The Nielson Design Lecture, held annually from 2009, is State Library's signature lecture series featuring an internationally renowned speaker presenting innovative ideas, work and methods on 'designing our future'. Listen to the Nielson Design lecture presented by Bruce Mau, world-leading visionary, innovator, designer and author.

Partners Program

Since its inception, the Partners Program has contributed a total of over $560,000 to the State Library of Queensland. In 2012, the Partners Program funded the acquisition of two rare first edition publications relating to Captain James Cook's voyage of discovery on HMS Endeavour 1768- 1771 - A Journal of a Voyage round the World, in his Majesty's ship Endeavour; and Astronomical Observations.

Signature Spaces

The Talbot Family Treasures Wall and the Philip Bacon Heritage Gallery are two of State Library's premier exhibition spaces featuring unique items from the John Oxley Library collection, exhibitions curated by State Library or travelling exhibitions.

View the current exhibition in the Philip Bacon Heritage Gallery

Specialty events and public presentations and workshops providing clients hands-on access to State Library collections are held in the Fox Family White Gloves Room, the Bank of Queensland Heritage collections Learning Room, the Queensland Terrace and the Tim Fairfax Newspaper Reading Room.

We thank all the donors, without whose generous support these beautiful spaces would not be available to Queenslanders.

Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame

In collaboration with Queensland University of Technology and State Library, the Foundation is assisting with funding to capture and record the stories of Queensland's business leaders. In addition to a highly successful annual dinner at which the year's inductees are announced, the project now includes a dedicated space in the heart of the John Oxley Library Reading Room. Here all inductees are honoured, and researchers, historians and State Library clients can connect to Queensland's business history and records.

Tea and Me

Proudly supported by the Foundation, this project aims to collect special tea-related stories from individuals and communities over Queensland. A selection of donated tea cups will be displayed on the Queensland Terrace. If you would like to contribute, please visit the Facebook page via the link below. Tea & Me uses Facebook as a communication and collection tool and was one of the first projects in Australia to crowd source collections.

View some of the moving tea-related stories and images on Facebook.

James C Sourris Artist Interview Series

In 2010 a series of interviews with contemporary Australian artists was added to the Australian Library of Art collection. Generously supported by James C Sourris, the interview series reveals new insights into Australian artists and their practice – previously unavailable on the public record.

Dads Read

To highlight the importance of fathers reading with their children, State Library has created the Dads Read program. The program targets fathers and encourages them to engage with their children to develop their early literacy skills. The focus of the program is reading events at public libraries, helping to connect more dads with local libraries as free places to read with their children and continually obtain new reading material and inspiration. To participate please contact dadsread@slq.qld.gov.au

black&write! Indigenous Writing and Editing Project

black&write! Is a bold, inspiring project designed to nurture talent, unleash the creative imagination and change the landscape of Indigenous writing in Australia. The project is designed to address the imbalance of numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the writing and publishing industries by bringing about long-term change to benefit and help build the numbers of Indigenous people in the industry, and revitalise Indigenous writing and publishing. The Foundation assisted the project through a successful application to the Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) in late June 2011. The funds assisted with the development of the 2011 Fellowship manuscripts and associated project costs in the 2011-2012 financial year. We thank CAL for their support.