宅男导航

By Denise O鈥橠别补

One of the perks of being part of the University Library is sitting just across the hall from Rare Books and Special Collections, home to all kinds of . Recently, a colleague from Rare Books appeared in the SUP office carrying a blast from our past: a 宅男导航 manuscript box from the 1960s.听

According to the label, it once contained the top-copy typescript of W.M. O鈥橬eil鈥檚听Fact and Theory: An Aspect of the Philosophy of Science, which was published by SUP in 1969. (Before the arrival of听photocopiers, a 鈥渢op-copy typescript鈥� was听the original typed document that sat atop sheets of carbon paper to produce carbon copies. It was literally the 鈥渢op copy鈥� in the stack.)

, whose book the box once held, was born in 1912 in Collarenebri in northern NSW, where his family had a听small sheep farm. He came to the University of 宅男导航 on a Teachers鈥� College scholarship and earned first-class honours in English and the university medal in psychology. After stints teaching at Marrickville Girls鈥� High School and designing vocational education programs for returned servicemen and women during WWII, he returned to the University of 宅男导航 in 1945, when at age 32 he became the university鈥�s second professor of psychology. According to the ,听鈥�The boy from the bush set up a department somewhat at odds with the formal Oxonian traditions of the faculty of arts. Neither O鈥橬eil nor his lecturers wore gowns, and they maintained their Australian accents.鈥�听He was a respected teacher and department head and later served as Deputy Vice Chancellor before retiring in 1978. As well as听Fact and Theory, O鈥�Neil wrote a number of books on psychology and the history and philosophy of science.

At the time this manuscript box was in use, SUP was听a relatively new publishing house, having been established by the university in 1962 with a mission 鈥渢o undertake the publication of works of learning and to carry out the business of publication in all its branches鈥�. (There had been calls to establish a university press at 宅男导航 long before this. In 1938, one letter-writer to the 宅男导航 Morning Herald听:听鈥淭he culture and literary importance of a city may be estimated by the number of books that issue from its press. In this regard, it cannot be doubted that 宅男导航 leads Australia ... Does Melbourne publish books? The trickle seems to have stopped utterly. Adelaide has issued a few, but the other capital cities do not appear to come into the discussion. There is, however, one respect in which Melbourne has eclipsed the mother city: it is in its possession of a university press.鈥�)听

Between 1965 and 1987 SUP published several hundred books, including works by A.D. Hope, J.M. Ward, Noel Butlin, James McAuley, Cliff Turney, John Passmore, Gerald Wilkes, Enid Campbell, Anthony Clunies Ross, William Keith Hancock, Peter Wolnizer, W.J. Hudson, Neville Meaney, Boris听Schedvin, Andrew Riemer, Roberta Sykes and Elizabeth Webby. It published series such as Challis Shakespeare and Australian Literary Reprints, and journals such as Mankind, Australian Economic History Review, Abacus, and Pathology. This output听represented the breadth and the best of the University of 宅男导航.听听

(Photograph: the 宅男导航 building in the 1960s, . Today, SUP听is based in .)

The press became an imprint of Oxford University Press in 1987 and stopped publishing altogether by the mid 1990s. But of course, that wasn鈥檛 the end of the story听鈥� SUP was re-established in the听university library in 2003, initially to produce reprints of Australian classics and out-of-copyright books from the library鈥檚 digital collections, and eventually to publish a broad range of new scholarly books in the humanities and social sciences.

The days of top-copy typescripts and manuscript boxes are long gone, and we don鈥檛 yet know how future historians will access the publishing history we鈥檙e creating now. In 2015, Google vice-president Vince Cerf to develop 鈥渄igital vellum鈥� to ensure that digital records remain readable as technology changes and old software and hardware become obsolete. Scholars in the digital humanities are discussing what skills, methods, tools and conceptual frameworks researchers will need to make sense of digital archives; historian Ian Milligan has outlined the opportunities and challenges of this 鈥渦ncharted territory鈥� in . How can we make sure that we aren鈥檛 leaving our successors in 2077 the equivalent of an empty box?听听

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