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Well, everybody, this is my final post to this blog. I was the first person, and I know I won't be the last, to manage this blog, and I have to say that it has been a great experience over these last few years. I have really enjoyed your comments on it, with all those suggestions that you have found it interesting, and of course those suggestions that have led me to investigate things further. I will miss you all, but look forward to seeing what else develops with the new person taking over. I wish all readers all the best as I say goodbye to you all.

I have just come back from a wonderful time at Fujian University of Technology, in China, with a gig as Visiting Professor there. I have come across excellent material being produced there, including books that have been published in Chinese, but not accessible to those of us who do not literate in Chinese. It suggests to me that there is some excellent scholarship that the rest of us might like to engage, but cannot. Perhaps some serious translation projects need to be undertaken. At the same time, I discovered that these books are published at the authors' considerable expense. I did not know that this was the case in relation to having one's book published in China. The authors concerned were in similar fashion quite surprised that my own co-authored book has been published without any financial contribution by me, and even more that I will receive royalty payment from the publisher for having written it. Interesting, isn't it, how things can be so different.

When I got back, I found that that book of mine is up for a reprint, so am very happy to know that folk have been so interested in it. If you'd like to check it yourself, if you haven't already done so, it's Zeegers, M., & Barron, D. (2010). Gatekeepers of knowledge: A consideration of the library, the book and the scholar in the Western world. Oxford: Chandos.

And a happy new year to all.

Well, in my last posting I did say that I would have something more to say on the wonderful Korean Peace Project and the book of peace stories that was produced as a result. What has happened in the meantime, with the developing events on that Peninsula, has filled me with dread of the possible future. So much is happening to undermine hopes for peace. I really don’t know what to say about books and their potential in this field under these circumstances, for it all sounds rather hollow now. I do know that we have to keep the hopes alive, and to do all that we can, in our respective areas of work, to keep those hopes alive. I will be leaving for a stint in China soon, and will not be back for a month or so. I would like to wish you all the best of the season, and sincerely hope that the news for 2011 will be good for us all.

This conference just keeps getting better and better each year. From a relatively small group of passionate presenters at the outset, it has now grown to a rather large number of passionate presenters. What makes this conference so unique is that it really does allow us to pursue our own interests AND establish an academic legitimacy regarding what we all do. All of our interests are so individual, so detailed, so involved in the minutiae of books, book production, book publication, book editing, book restoration, book commissioning, book writing, book illustration, book access, book discoveries...the list goes on and on. My own involvement this year has been limited to virtual participation, and while I would have loved to have been there, I still feel that I was able to be involved because of this online participation feature being made available to us. My own paper, "European and Indigenous Australian positionings through books and non-print texts: Investigations with a regional Australian primary school" is an online presentation, so I have not been entirely absent. What has happened is that my institution has a policy of only one international trip per year, and I was already committed to working on a wonderful project in the production of a book as part of a peace project in Korea, but more of that later, so I could not attend both. I just know that those of you who were there, and those that participated online, were as inspired as I to engage the wonderful work of others, and to pursue our own with renewed passion, not to mention energy, as a result of this.

I have to tell you about a wonderful project that I have been involved with for a little over a year now. It’s the NAMBOOK-010 (based in Korea) Peace Project, funded in part by UNICEF Korea, where a book, ‘Peace Story’ was commissioned by NAMBOOK-010 for the 2010 Nami Island Children’s Book Festival in 2010. I have just come back from the festival, which was opened with the launching of this most beautiful book. It is a collection of illustrated stories commissioned for the project. As it says on the fly leaf, ‘Each new story was made by artists and writers from across the furthest reaches of the globe’. It sells for $US20.00; its ISBN is 978-89-91591-46-2. The Australian writer, Susanne Gervay, and illustrator, Frané Lessac, took up the commission in 2009, and their story is a most beautiful and so timely account of a refugee from East Timor in Australia, who has to cope with this new life without a sister who did not make it with the rest of the family. The other stories are of similar beauty and poignancy, from Brazil, India, Pakistan, Sudan, Bolivia, China, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Iran, Japan, Lithuania, Malaysia, Moldova, New Zealand, Turkey, Uganda, the USA, and, of course, Korea. Wrestling with the concept of peace, and representing those concepts in accessible language and image that would appeal to children and the adults who buy such books for them, each contributor was essentially working in isolation from the others, not knowing that the result would be such a thing of sensitivity, charm, and beauty. The chairman of NAMBOOK, and the power house driving this project, Mr Kang Woo-hyon, has had, what is typically for him, a strong presence in the totality of the project, including the cover illustration, and his own ‘Foreword’ sums it all up: ‘Love, happiness, peace—these three words best describe that for which humans most seek—simple words to say yet perhaps the hardest of things to achieve. And of these, peace is the most difficult. We may have some control over happiness and even love, for they reside within our mind. But peace? It is something we achieve with others—something we create only by cooperation’. Such concepts are embraced in this book, and I would urge folk to get a copy of it in their hands so that they can experience some of the power of this project as well.

Folk may be interested in a book that sank without a trace in 1862, by one William Blandowski, having been self published and financially ruinous to the author in the process. It has just been published as ‘Australia: William Blandowski’s Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia’, edited by Henry Allen, by Aboriginal Studies Press here in Australia. In the following I have drawn of Nicholas Rothwell’s review of this excellent book in ‘The Weekend Australian Review’ of September 11-12. Obviously unwanted by the Europeans in Australia at the time, Blandowski’s work never was appreciated in his lifetime, despite his having been instrumental in generating the interest required to establish a Museum of Natural History in 1854, acting as its first curator, staging scientific specimen displays, and so on. Described by Rothwell as ‘just an artistically inclined, romantic-minded aristo from the Polish-German borderlands’, Blandowski was convinced that what Aboriginal Australia had to offer was worth preserving, as he discovered as he made long journeys outside of the boundaries established by Europeans as they took over land along the coast. His lack of practical appreciation of the political and social dimensions of his work meant that he would name new specimens after scientifically, politically and socially prominent people, certainly, but he would actually allocate such a name to a species, and then describe it in words like ‘a slimy slippery’ mud-dweller or another with ‘a low forehead, big belly and sharp spine’...hardly the way to win friends and influence people, eh?
Such things did not help his cause, or his publishing efforts, but what is salient about this work is his own postscript to his work, where he gives his prediction regarding the very people of Australia for whom he had developed such respect: ‘Another lifespan, and only a few will be left of those who once were the masters of this great land. Vanquished, begging like gypsies, sinking into lethargy and apathy, they will survive by the mercy of those who murdered and destroyed their parents, siblings, children and tribal members’. In 1862, perhaps he had enough to go on to make such a prediction, and it could be applied to Indigenous Peoples all over the world where they have come into unwanted contact with Europeans. It is the accuracy of his prophecy that is so chilling.

I occasionally watch a television program on books shown in this country, a sort of television book club. I recently came across an interview with Christopher Hitchins and his book, 'Hitch 22'. My interest is not so much in relation to this book, which has been recently published, for I do not read biography or autobiography, because I find my own life more than interesting enough, and often much more interesting than those which form the subjects of such books. But what interested me about this was the title, a deliberate play on 'Catch 22'. Christopher Hitchens described this as coming out of a conversation he had with Rushdie, who suggested that a different word would change the perceptions of a book altogether. Take for example 'Good Expectations', 'The Big Gatsby', and so on...it changes things doesn't it? So he played on "Catch 22' and his own nickname. I like the idea. How about 'Murray Dick'? 'Blustering Heights'? 'Lttle Mary' (rather than 'Little Dorrit', possibly Dickens' greatest novel)? 'The Red Letter'? Dr Ivanovich'? It's good fun...I recommend you try it.

I occasionally watch a television program on books shown in this country, a sort of television book club. I recently came across an interview with Christopher Hitchins and his book, 'Hitch 22'. My interest is not so much in relation to this book, which has been recently published, for I do not read biography or autobiography, because I find my own life more than interesting enough, and often much more interesting than those which form the subjects of such books. But what interested me about this was the title, a deliberate play on 'Catch 22'. Christopher Hitchens described this as coming out of a conversation he had with Rushdie, who suggested that a different word would change the perceptions of a book altogether. Take for example 'Good Expectations', 'The Big Gatsby', and so on...it changes things doesn't it? So he played on "Catch 22' and his own nickname. I like the idea. How about 'Murray Dick'? 'Blustering Heights'? 'Little Mary' (rather than 'Little Dorrit', possibly Dickens' greatest novel)? 'The Red Letter'? Dr Ivanovich'? It's good fun...I recommend you try it.

I have been doing an awful lot of reading this last while, for I have been working with a museum school, the only one of its kind in the world, where children participate in classes run by teachers employed by the Education Department that runs all schools in the state. The children research the history of childhood and children in the 1850s in a Gold Rush context, write a narrative for a character that they will play for three days while they are at the school, dress in appropriate costume for that character, and play the part for tourists to see as they visit the classrooms that have been carefully designed and furnished, on the basis of historical accuracy. The teachers, themselves employed by the Department, have similarly researched the roles that they are to play, and so have the inspectors, be they State, Catholic, or Anglican representations of the roles. Indeed, the whole of sovereign Hill acts as one enormous set, spread over a huge allotment, in which the various characters play out thier allotted roles.It is a most remarkable thing to see, as characters are carefully delineated from each other, and the ‘scripts’ that each of the participants enact are scrupulously adhered to, even as the performances are live interpretations of the reading that each has done. The school is at Sovereign Hill in Ballarat, Victoria, and all visitors to the various branches of the school...the National School which represents the state schools of the era, the Ragged School which represents the schools established by benevolent societies for the education of the children of the poor, St Alipius School, representing the schools established by the Catholic church, and St Peter’s, which caters for the more well-to-do Anglican children of the goldfields. Working through the various Histories of Childhood as part of this most stimulating project has prompted me to revisit some of the classic works of previous eras, and my encounters with Louisa M. Alcott’s ‘Little Women’ and ‘Jo’s Boys’ have been affected by the new understandings of childhood of the 19th century that experiencing the treatment meted out to children in these schools at Sovereign Hill (all part of sustained role plays and character depiction) has brought. The same can be said for my re-readings of Dickens’ books, especially ‘Little Dorrit’ (which television adaptation is currently screening in Australia...and it is an excellent adaptation at that) and ‘The Old Curiousity Shop’. This last one, of course, brings to mind Oscar Wilde’s response to it...”One must have a heart of stone not to laugh at the death of Little Nell’. Nevertheless, I cannot speak highly enough of the program that I have encountered here, or ways in which my own understandings of books have been affected in a most positive fashion. I am yet to determine just how the children have responded to their experience.

I am somewhat humbled by the way my book, Gatekeepers of Knowledge (Zeegers, M., & Barron, D. (2010). Gatekeepers of knowledge: A consideration of the library, the book and the scholar in the Western world. Oxford: Chandos), is selling so well. One reader has already provided me with his response to something in that book, a different account of what happened to the Library of Alexandria. This is something which I will have to investigate further. I have copied it in below:
'I have a different story of the Library of Alexandria. The brief story I heard of Alexandria was concerning the last librarian. A brilliant scholar, mathematician, poet and philosopher, a true giant of their time. Her name was Hypatia. She was beset one day on her way to the library by a mob of Christians led by the then bishop of Alexandria, Cyril. Hypatia was dragged from her chariot and the flesh was flayed from her bones with abalone shells...killed horribly. The mob then attacked and destroyed the library. The collection was destroyed, all that knowledge lost and moreover suppressed. Cyril was, of course, made a saint. Anyway that is the account that I had heard from Carl Sagan’s book, ‘Cosmos’'.
Sagan, you might recall, had a popular television series that deals with such things. I would be pleased to hear any other such stories.