BACKGROUND

History of the book - or 'print culture' - is a rapidly emerging interdisciplinary area of study. A working group to co-ordinate the writing of a History of the Book in Australia in three parts was formed in 1993, chaired by Wallace Kirsop (Monash), and the Centre's Director, Paul Eggert is a member of the group.

At the Centre's 4Rs editing conference at the Humanities Research Centre, ANU in April 1994 a session on the History of the Book in Australia was included and the committee met afterwards; and later in 1994 another well-attended seminar was held at the State Library in Victoria in conjunction with a BSANZ conference. The project held its own conferences in Sydney (1996), Melbourne (1997) and Sydney (1998). The publication of a 3-volume collaborative history of printing culture in Australia was projected, with UQP as the publisher, supported by a Large ARC grant.

The Australian Scholarly Editions Centre's role was to give active organisational support to this general initiative and to co-sponsor the annual HOBA Conferences.

Volume 2 covering the period 1891-1945 appeared in 2001 (ISBN 0 7022 3234 3). Volume 3 covering 1846-2005 appeared in 2006 (ISBN 0 7022 3559 8). Both are available from UQP at http://www.uqp.uq.edu.au/. Volume 1 is forthcoming.

In January-February 2003 the Centre co-organised the BOOKS AND EMPIRE conference. Click here for the program. A selection of papers appeared in the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand Bulletin in 2004.

Abstracts and full-text of many of the papers given at the HOBA Conferences are available here. These are working papers, not refereed publications of the University College, AFDA.

HOBA 96 CONFERENCE
HOBA 97 CONFERENCE
HOBA 98 CONFERENCE
HOBA 99 CONFERENCE
BOOKS & EMPIRE, 2003

A HISTORY OF THE BOOK IN AUSTRALIA, 1891­1945:
A National Culture in a Colonised Market

CANBERRA HISTORY OF THE BOOK GROUP