{"id":6086,"date":"2016-06-14T08:00:56","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T22:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stumblingpast.com\/?p=6086"},"modified":"2022-08-04T00:25:26","modified_gmt":"2022-08-04T00:25:26","slug":"second-hand-bookshopping-in-brisbane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumblingpast.com\/2016\/06\/14\/second-hand-bookshopping-in-brisbane\/","title":{"rendered":"Second-Hand Bookshopping in Brisbane"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hubble and I enjoy rummaging through second-hand bookshops. They are treasure troves. I buy some new books, but I am building up my Australian history collection by finding out of print, sometimes obscure gems in second-hand bookshops. Often these books are hard to find in a library near me – particularly if they solely relate to a state other than the state in which I live. I visited two great second-hand bookshops while I was in Brisbane recently.\u00a0I left Sydney with a 10kg suitcase and returned with a 20kg suitcase full of second-hand books.<\/p>\n

\"Red<\/a>
Archives Fine Books in Charlotte Street, Brisbane<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Book<\/a>
Soldiers of the Service Vol II, edited by Eddie Clarke and Tom Watson (Church Archivists’ Press, 1999).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For a number of years I have been visiting Archives Fine Books<\/a>\u00a0in Charlotte Street. Recently I found a large room at the back of the shop that I had not been aware of. In this room I found\u00a0Soldiers of the Service Volume II: More Early Queensland Educators and their Schools.\u00a0<\/em>Not too many people would get excited by this title, but it should be a good reference book for my work about\u00a0the history of education in Queensland. I bought it because I thought it would be difficult to borrow from a library in Sydney where I live. Not only is it available in very few libraries, there was not one image of the front cover on the internet until I photographed my own and uploaded it. Now I need to find a copy of Volumes I and III. Given the interest in this book (see comments) I have added a list of the chapter titles of this book at the end of this post.<\/p>\n

I also picked up some old school readers. School readers are generally not digitised. I am purchasing readers when I can so that I can digitise them at home using my camera, a cardboard box, a lamp and some optical character recognition (OCR) software to convert print to machine readable text using these instructions<\/a>. Once I have done this I can easily analyse the text in these readers.<\/p>\n

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am a big believer in walking the streets of the places I am researching. Historical research can be a very sedentary occupation so walking the streets is also a good way to get some exercise on a research trip. One morning I walked a couple of kilometres from my hotel to Bent Books<\/a> in Brisbane’s West End.<\/p>\n

\"Small<\/a>
Bent Books, 205A Boundary Street, West End.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"100<\/a>
100 years of history : Holland Park Mosque 1908-2008 by Mustafa A Ally (Eight Mile Plains, 2008).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was well worth the walk. Bent Books has a well organised history section where I picked up\u00a0100 years of history: Holland Park Mosque 1908-2008.\u00a0<\/em>According to Trove<\/a>, this book is only available in four Australian libraries, none of which are in Sydney. I am looking forward to learning more about Brisbane’s experience of Islam.<\/p>\n

Bent Books is on Boundary Street\u00a0in West End. This street marks the boundary where Aboriginal people were not allowed to cross after dusk (see The History of Boundary Street Curfew<\/a>). Earlier this year there was a\u00a0debate about whether the name should be changed<\/a>\u00a0but at least one Aboriginal elder argued that renaming the street would be wrong as such an action would\u00a0enable people to avoid\u00a0an essential aspect\u00a0of our history.<\/p>\n

\"Huggins<\/a>
Auntie Rita by Rita Huggins and Jackie Huggins (Aboriginal Studies Press, 1994).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bent Books, like most good second-hand bookshops, has books about our Aboriginal history. I picked up a book that I have been wanting to read for some time –\u00a0Auntie Rita <\/em>by Rita and Jackie Huggins.<\/p>\n

Second-hand bookshops offer a great service recycling old books. Like shopping at a good bricks and mortar retailer of new books, it is the experience of being in the bookshop which counts as much as finding books. I know that I can just get onto Abe Books<\/a> and order whatever I want from the comfort of home, but I enjoy searching searching for books on the shelves, talking to shop owners and customers. At Bent Books a customer recommended that I check out Boswell’s Books in Ashgrove<\/a>. I’ll do that next time I’m in Brisbane.<\/p>\n

After a bout of second-hand bookshopping I add them to my LibraryThing catalogue<\/a>. If they are paperback books I cover them with contact – I hate dog-eared books. Books go straight onto the shelf if I have previously read them through a library or if they are reference books, otherwise I add them to my bedtime reading ‘to be read’ (TBR) pile or my research TBR pile.<\/p>\n

Soldiers of the Service Vol II: List of Chapters<\/h2>\n

After the introduction by Tom Watson:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. ‘Andrew Barlow: A Reforming Minister of Education, 1903-1909’ by Tom Watson<\/li>\n
  2. ‘John Douglas Story: The ‘Atlas’ of Queensland Education: His rise to power, values and administrative style, 1900-1923′ by Greg Logan<\/li>\n
  3. ‘Leonard Morris: The Long-serving Superintendent of Technical Education: developing practical technical education, 1909-1925’ by\u00a0David Green<\/li>\n
  4. ‘James Stubbin: The Zealous Teacher of Agriculture, 1910-1926’ by\u00a0Greg Logan<\/li>\n
  5. ‘Marianne Brydon: The Respected Inspectress of Women’s Work, 191901932’ by\u00a0Michael Marendy<\/li>\n
  6. ‘Edith Bryan: The Gifted Teacher of the Deaf and Dumb, 1901-1937’ by\u00a0Geoff Swan<\/li>\n
  7. ‘Reginald Roe: The Cultured Inspector-General, 1909-1917’ by\u00a0Tom Watson<\/li>\n
  8. ‘Milisent Wilkinson: The Battling Lady Principal of Brisbane Girls Grammar Scool, 1900-1912’ by Tom Watson<\/li>\n
  9. ‘Frederick Bousfield: The Besieged Headmaster of Brisbane Grammar School, 1909-1928’ by\u00a0Pam Barnett<\/li>\n
  10. ‘John Shirley: The Highly Qualified Trainer of Teachers, 1914-1919’ by\u00a0Tom Watson<\/li>\n
  11. ‘Cuthbert Potts: The Isolated Principal, Queensland Agricultural College, Lawes, 1915-1923’ by\u00a0Philip Raymont<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Hubble and I enjoy rummaging through second-hand bookshops. They are treasure troves. I buy some new books, but I am building up my Australian history collection by finding out of print, sometimes obscure gems in second-hand bookshops. Often these books are hard to find in a library near me – particularly if they solely relate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[33,43,53,54,55,81,106,109,154],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Yvonne Perkins","author_link":"https:\/\/stumblingpast.com\/author\/yvonne\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingpast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6086"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingpast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingpast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingpast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingpast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6086"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingpast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7011,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingpast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6086\/revisions\/7011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingpast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingpast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingpast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}