Exciting Collaboration with the DAAO

Above: Joseph Lycett, Views in Australia, or, New South Wales & Van Diemen’s Land delineated: in fifty views with descriptive letter press, London: J. Souter, 1824-25.

This year the Cultural Collections of the University of Melbourne, including the Baillieu Library Print Collection and the Special Collections, are collaborating with the DAAO (Design & Art Australia Online) with the support of the University’s Australian Institute of Art History (AIAH). The DAAO is an open-source, freely accessible scholarly eResearch tool leading discovery of biographical data about Australian artists, designers, craftspeople and curators. www.daao.org.au

This University-supported academic database builds upon the comprehensive research directed by Professor Joan Kerr for the Dictionary of Australian Artists, first published in 1984 and followed by an enlarged edition in 1992.

A specific project of collaboration between the Baillieu Library Special Collections and the DAAO has focussed on the Library’s outstanding works of the 18th and 19th centuries that depict the natural history and topography of Australia. Indeed, the Collections’ early Australian plate books provide a significant visual record of Australian colonial history. Recently, a prominent gathering of these works has been listed on the DAAO in the biographical entries of their artistic creators, with links back to the Specials Collections and the Library catalogue. Notable examples include Joseph Lycett’s Views in Australia (1824-25), Conrad Martens’ Sketches in the environs of Sydney (1850), S.T. Gill’s Sketches in Victoria (c.1855) and a collection of works by Louisa Anne Meredith, drawing upon the University’s comprehensive holdings of her work. In effect, this year’s inaugural collaboration between the DAAO and the University of Melbourne is making significant strides in further highlighting the historic treasures to be found in the Baillieu Library collections.

Also of note is another project with the DAAO that draws upon the Special Collections’ large set of artists’ books, in the process expanding recognition for this specialised art form.