Gifting to the Library

Our Library is the heart of the University—a vibrant space where people gather, learn and most importantly, come together as a community.

Our staff provide expertise that empowers our researchers to create new knowledge and supports our students to develop digital and information skills vital to their academic success and future employment. Our extensive Special Collections contains the University Archive; the historical and cultural memory of both the University and the regions. These treasures allow us to tell the stories of our ancestors. Your donation to the University Library is critical in sustaining and enhancing the great benefit that the Library brings to so many. It will have a profound impact on our students, researchers and enable us to continue preserving the rich history of our region in further unlocking archives for future use.

Vera Deacon Regional History Fund

Vera Deacon Regional History Fund

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Our benefactors

Over the past years the people of Newcastle and the Hunter Valley have shown confidence in their University, and have been generous in depositing archives and manuscripts for permanent preservation and for research use. Individuals have also endowed the University with large amounts of money (from $1.5m up to $5m) to support specific University activities. Our most significant benefactors to date are:

The Auchmuty Library's greatest benefactor Miss Reta Light (1898 - 1989) in September 1989 left the Auchmuty Library a staggering $1.5 million. The Light Memorial Trust, which was formed to administer the endowment, has from 1991 to 1999 financed $597,172 worth of acquisitions of books, periodicals, microfilms and musical scores.

The Vera Deacon Regional History Fund was established to recognise and build on the generous donations provided by Stockton resident, author and historian, Vera Deacon. The purpose of this fund is to support and encourage regional history through the acquisition, preservation and study of valuable regional historical archival resources. Since its establishment in 2008, the fund has received over $300,000 in donations, providing employment opportunities, mentoring and work experience opportunities. This has allowed library staff, volunteers and students to uncover, preserve and safeguard the region’s important historical archives.

Dr Bob James is an historian and avid researcher of the history of Fraternalism in Australia. He has dedicated 40 years to building a collection that illustrates a history of community self-help and mutual aid, offering an alternative view to the official European Australian narrative. Dr James’ tireless collecting has uncovered an intriguing and diverse range of materials which provide a unique insight into the history of Australian Fraternal Societies and have informed his research and writing on the subject. His generous donation of the Fraternal Societies collection and ongoing support to the University of Newcastle will allow students and researchers to continue the interrogation and interpretation of this notable resource.

Esteemed environmental scientist and writer, Professor David Hewitt Miller was referred to by his colleagues as the “Scientist’s scientist”. Professor Miller taught seminars and courses in hydrology, climatology, and meteorology at Universities across the United States, and three times here at the University of Newcastle as a Fulbright lecturer in 1966, 71 and 79. On August 17, 1979 Professor Miller was awarded a Doctor of Letters (honorary) by Chancellor Sir Bede Callaghan in recognition of his contributions to scholarship. The University is grateful for Professor Miller’s contribution to academia and for his most generous bequest, resulting in the Special Collections Reading Room, which acknowledges his connection with, and time spent at the University of Newcastle.

The University Library thanks the Friends of the University for their generous contributions to the reimagining of the Auchmuty Library roof terrace — resulting in a new learning environment designed to allow students to read and socialise outdoors, launched in 2014.

Emeritus Professor Godfrey TannerWe warmly thank the late Professor Emeritus Godfrey Tanner, Foundation Professor in Classics, here pictured with the oldest book in the collection, Eusebius, Ecclesiasticae Historiae, published in Paris in 1544. He generously assisted in financing the restoration of this volume and also in the restoration of three other treasures from the Renaissance Collection, John Calvin's Two and Twenty Lectures upon the First Five Chapters of Jeremiah. London : Imprinted by Felix Kyngston, for Nathanael Newbery, 1620., Bishop Hugh Latimer's Frutefull sermons London : Printed by John Daye, 1584, and Nicholas Culpeper [Herbal] Physicall Directory ; or, A translation of the London Dispensatory Made by the Colledge [sic] of Physicians in London: Printed for Peter Cole, 1649.

We thank the Most Reverend Michael Malone, Catholic Bishop of Maitland (here pictured with the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Newcastle Roger Holmes) and the The Right Reverend Roger Herft, Anglican Bishop of Newcastle, for allowing the Special Collections Unit to house one of the largest and most comprehensive regional collections of Anglican and Catholic theological and philosophical works in Australia. We are fortunate to have the Bishop's Library Collection compiled by Catholic Bishops James Murray and Patrick Dwyer, as well as the Morpeth Collection compiled by Anglican Bishop William Tyrrell. The collections date back to 1544 and include many rare folio volumes, as well as parish registers, working papers and historical materials of the churches.

Mrs Winsome Pender, wife of the late Ian Walter Pender (1923-1988) placed custodianship of the Pender Archive to the University of Newcastle's Special Collections Unit. The Archive consists of 2,562 individual architectural projects and includes many beautiful original water colour drawings of private and public buildings across northern NSW. The collection comprises the achievements of three generations of the Pender family as architects in Maitland, spanning 125 years from the 1860s to the 1980s and represents the archive of the longest surviving architectural firm in the English speaking world.