Time-travelling librarian turns quirky State Library treasures into viral hits
By Janine Lucas | 18 February 2026
India ‘Indi’ Dixon filming a social media reel about an Edwardian-era mourning ring lined with braided human hair. Photo by Cinnamon Smith.
She is State Library of Queensland’s much more stylish version of Indiana Jones – India ‘Indi’ Dixon trained as an archaeologist before pursuing a career as a heritage librarian.
Rocking an eclectic look she describes as a ‘poorly disguised time traveller’, India stars in a much-loved TikTok series explaining the weird and wonderful treasures in State Library's collections.
More than 196,000 people have viewed Indi’s TikTok video about a 1940s beauty hack, featuring a package of liquid stockings used by World War II cartographer Cecily Fearnley. Ibis stew recipe tips and a mourning ring inlaid with braided human hair have also been a hit, drawing new audiences for State Library's collections on TikTok and Instagram.
‘My role at State Library is to seek out and collect the documentary heritage of Queensland in its many forms, covering all the different lived experiences of Queenslanders throughout time,’ she says.
‘It's a tremendously broad brief! With so much diversity in Queensland, you sometimes need to look for sources of information in unconventional places. Some material will be offered as donations; other material turns up through antiquarian vendors or at auctions, and we even commission some materials, such as our oral history recordings.
‘The work is different every single day, and you end up collecting little pieces of expertise in all sorts of disparate subjects. I love getting to go down different rabbit holes and research elements of our social history that may otherwise be forgotten. And I love getting to share some of those stories in a way that helps people connect with them and see their value.’
The beauty rituals of Jane Austen's world
Ibis stew anyone?
Would you try this 1940s beauty hack?
Want to see our hairy little secret?
We asked India to share some of her most intriguing finds and what inspires her about working with State Library’s collections.
Brisbane tramway conductor’s cap, 1950–59, State Library of Queensland. Acc no 34788.
Radon self-mix hosiery compound (1939–45), Australian Stockings powder, State Library of Queensland. Acc no 33697/27.
What’s the most surprising item you’ve added to the collection?
It’s hard to choose! I love the 1950s Queensland Tramways hat that was signed and taken as a trophy by the rival NSW transport department’s sports team, or perhaps the packet of World War II liquid stockings, which still has some of the product in the package. The story of liquid stockings and wartime ingenuity is one that has stuck with me for years, so seeing the product in the flesh and adding some to our collection was a major win for me personally.
I once found a promotional image from the 1921 lost film Retribution, which was one of the earliest ever filmed in Queensland, aired in Queensland, and so universally panned that it apparently caused the bankruptcy of the local studio that made it. It had a plucky lady detective who wore pants and was trying to solve the murder of an Anakie sapphire baron!
How do you know when something belongs in State Library’s collection?
We have specific criteria that help us decide if something is fitting for the collection. Some are easy, such as whether the document was created by a Queenslander, or published in Queensland, or if the subject matter is Queensland. However, there are lots of items that don’t fit within the traditional concepts of a ‘document’, and weighing up if an item offers an appropriate amount of informational value to ‘qualify’ is an acquired skill. Sometimes, a board game is a document. Sometimes, an enamel badge or a ribbon or a souvenir flag is a document. And sometimes they’re not! It’s all dependent on what it’s able to communicate to a researcher.
Reels featuring India showing weird and wonderful items from State Library of Queensland collections have drawn hundreds of thousands of views on social media.
Your fashion choices have been a hit with TikTokers. How would you describe your sense of style and what have been some favourite reactions on social media?
I think of my style as being something along the lines of ‘poorly disguised time traveller’. I tend to combine a real mishmash of visual cues and silhouettes from the last century or so; Edwardian skirts and waistcoats, 1940s suits, those sorts of things. I love combining textures in my outfits, knit and wool and tweed and linen. I particularly enjoy when the result reads to people as ‘oh yeah, that's a librarian’, even when I am outside of a library environment.
I found the Taylor Swift lookalike comments funny – I used to get that kind of thing a couple of times a day when I worked in customer-facing industries, but it's a rare occasion at work these days. I think the clientele I usually interact with in my library role have a different range of cultural references. It was also hilarious to see one commenter clock the exact place I bought some of my outfit from! I thought that was an excellent sign the video had found the right audience.
Goldsmith Bros. mourning ring, c.1902–14, State Library of Queensland. Acc no 34515. The ring, lined with braided human hair, features in State Library’s TikTok series with Indi. Photo by Cinnamon Smith.
You earned a degree in archaeology before pursuing archival studies. Are there parallels with your chosen profession?
Absolutely there are, and it’s why I chose to follow this path professionally. In archaeology, your job is to ‘read’ the physical records left behind at a site and interpret what the occupants’ lived experiences were like. It's often used as a way of understanding the lives of people who weren't written about in the traditional historical record. With archives that span 150 years of original material, it’s inevitable that there are stories and lived experiences that get forgotten among the shelves. I like to think part of my job is finding ways to excavate those stories from our collections and share them with others. My digging is now amongst the stacks, rather than in the dirt!
Soldiers enjoy participating in the VJ Day procession, 1945, State Library of Queensland. Neg 201320.
Walking the dog and cat, date unknown, George Jackman, State Library of Queensland. Image 7708-0001-0079.
If you could step into any historical photo or document in the collection, which would it be?
That depends! I think it would be incredible to step into the photos of the victory celebrations at the end of World War II. Getting the chance to experience all of that collective joy, relief and excitement first-hand would be incredible.
If there's a photograph that I think reflects my personality the most, it would be this one (above right).
If I could step into a document and bring things back OUT of the document? Well, I would have to choose one of the incredible department store catalogues in our collections (below)! I'd go furniture shopping directly from those pages.
Assorted trade catalogues from the ephemera collections, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland.
Hortus Spaarn-Bergensis: enumeratio stirpium quas, in villa Spaarn-Berg prope Harlemum alit Adr. van der Hoop, 1839, Willem Hendrik Vriese, State Library of Queensland. Call no RBJ 580.73492 VRI.
The most unexpected place where you’ve found a collection gem ...
A rare bookshop in Amsterdam! They were selling an 1839 work called Hortus Spaarn-Bergensis (Spaarnberg garden), a historical catalogue of the plants and trees in the famous garden of the Spaarnberg country estate in Santpoort, The Netherlands. Van der Hoop was one of the richest men in The Netherlands and a collector of art and botanical books. His catalogue contained plants from all over the world, including almost 200 species from Australia, including several from Queensland.
It’s quite incredible when you look at the context of Australia’s colonial history. England had begun colonisation barely 50 years before this book was published, and Queensland wouldn’t be founded as a state for another 20 years after that. And yet the gardens of Europe’s wealthiest families were cultivating banksias and bougainvillea in their hothouses. Even Napoleon’s wife, the Empress Josephine, was growing Queensland plants with reverence and fascination in the gardens of Malmaison. It’s amazing to think Queensland’s impact and reach could extend so far at a time when travel was so costly and slow, and that records of that reach can be found.
Masking shortages, 2020, AboutFace: Covid-19 masks, State Library of Queensland. Acc no 32729.
A recent acquisition that you think will be a curiosity in 100 years ...
The Covid mask collections. I think those items – both the mass-produced ones and the handmade ones in the artist books collections – will be tremendously significant to researchers in the future, especially when the centenary comes up.
A ‘holy grail’ item you’d love to acquire for State Library one day ...
An original ‘Avenge the Nurses!’ poster from World War II, depicting the tragic sinking of the Centaur. It's an iconic piece of wartime imagery, and the event is one of the most dramatic and pivotal points in Queensland’s involvement in World War II and has eluded me so far.
See more collection treasures in our Highlights publication:
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