Library Drop-In Day

Did you know that NERAM has a library?

We even have an incredible volunteer librarian, Sylvia Ransom!

This year, for Library and Information Week (July 27 to August 2) Sylvia will be opening up NERAM’s Howard Hinton Research Library to the public from 10am – 4pm on Wednesday the 29th of July.

Although the Howard Hinton Research Library has been in existence in its present form since 2011, many people, including visitors to NERAM, are unaware of its existence. The core of the collection is the nearly 650 books Howard Hinton donated to the Armidale Teachers’ College library to enable students to learn about art, as well as look at the works Hinton donated to the College that hung on the walls of the college. Today, some of these books are very valuable. Others are examples of the sort of art books available to students in the 1930s and 1940s. The reproduction of artworks in these makes users realise how far printing has progressed in the nearly 100 hundred years since Hinton began sending books and paintings to the teachers’ college.

Also in the library are books about Australian art and artists, and a collection of exhibition catalogues, as well as some journals like Art and Australia.

Selected for display on our open day will be some very beautiful and valuable books, and some books relevant to recent exhibitions and talks held in Armidale. The library is not generally open to the public, but researchers can visit by arrangement, and although it is generally not a lending library, we have lent works to other libraries and galleries by special arrangement. If asked, the librarian will answer queries using the materials held.

There is an online catalogue of the materials held available at NERAM’s Research Library | New England Regional Art Museum.