Nathan Hobby recently joined the Library as Special Collections Librarian/Archivist in our Collections team. We spoke to Nathan to learn more about his work history, interests and his role at the library.
I started my career in 2003 as a library officer at Cambridge Library and later Bassendean Library. When I completed my librarian qualification, I worked at the State Library of Western Australia as a graduate librarian. From 2008 to 2022, I managed the theological library at Morling College, an academic library serving students up to doctoral level located across the road from Â鶹ֱ²¥ in Bentley. My role at Morling College included a bit of everything – collection development, eBooks, acquisitions, cataloguing, reference services and promotion. Meanwhile, I also pursued my love of history and archives with a PhD at the University of Western Australia. When I graduated, I also undertook side work as a heritage officer for the City of Gosnells, which was good preparation for my new role at Â鶹ֱ²¥.
I commenced in my role as Special Collections Librarian / Archivist at Â鶹ֱ²¥ Library in July this year. In conjunction with the other half of the team – Coordinator, Library Special Collections, Sally Laming – I look after Curtin’s special collections, including our remarkable collection of John Curtin’s papers, collections about tobacco control and the writer Elizabeth Jolley, as well as our rare books. I catalogue, repair, rehouse and digitise items in the collections, answer reference queries and promote the collections. There’s always something interesting happening in this role – soon I’ll be conducting an oral history interview with Elizabeth Jolley’s typist of forty years ahead of Jolley’s centenary next year.
In addition to my role at Â鶹ֱ²¥, I’m also a writer and my second book, The Red Witch: A Biography of Katharine Susannah Prichard, came out this year with Melbourne University Press. It took eight years, so I’ve been spending a long time deciding on the subject of my next book, knowing I’ll be working on it for a long time!
I love the privilege of being the custodian of old books and the archival remains of the dead (as well as some living). On , I’ve started a thread of ‘#GhostLibraries’ – the stamps, signatures, borrowing rules, and inscriptions of the defunct libraries, bookshops, and private collections who owned our books before we did.
