Curios, conundrums, mysteries and marvels: the National Library has over 10 million items in its collection, with treasures in abundance. Join us online via Zoom to explore the collection.

The Sharp Collection contains 150 programmes from theatres across Sydney from between 1898 and 1907. Imagine life with early vaudeville, drama, musical theatre in theatres like the Tivoli, the Theatre Royal and Lyceum with the actors, managers and personalities of the time.

Join the Library’s Ephemera Officer, Fiona Spooner, and long-time volunteer, Margaret Goode as they talk about the remarkable Sharp Collection, a small formed collection of theatre ephemera within the National Library’s PROMPT performing arts ephemera collection,

Fiona will provide you with an overview of the Library’s ephemera collections, while also highlighting some of the recent and current work in the area. Margaret will talk about the Volunteers working on the Sharp Collection and will show you some rarities in the collection. She will also show you how the volunteers have entertained themselves while the Library is shut down for COVID 19, by correcting theatre information in newspapers on Trove.

Along the way, you will learn how the team makes the items discoverable through Trove  and the Flinders University database AusStage, and how to access them.

You’ll have the opportunity to talk and ask questions throughout the session in a friendly and informal online setting. Settle in for a Friends-only chat, to learn and converse in the comfort of home with a good group of Friends.

Join this session via Zoom and learn how digitisation defeats isolation and opens up access in a pandemic, or any time.

To join this online event register for the event with your Friends membership number. We will send out an email prior to the event with the Zoom URL, as well as reminder emails a week, a day and an hour before the webinar with the URL to join.

Before joining, be sure to check system requirements to avoid any connection issues: https://zoom.us/test (note: this is to test your connection, please ignore the webcam and audio components)

Become a member of the Friends of the National Library of Australia. 

Image: Sharp Collection of programmes of concerts, musicals, theatre, vaudeville staged primarily in Sydney, 1887. Rignold, George. & Holt, Bland. & Rickards, Harry. & Sharp, Clarence. & National Library of Australia. & J. C. Williamson (Firm). & Tivoli Theatre. https://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn1870140