New Encyclopedia an A-Z of ‘marvellous Melbourne’
Media Release, Tuesday 18 October 2005
After ten years’ hard work the first encyclopedia of Melbourne has been produced by a University of Melbourne historian, and a team of over 400 contributors.
Editor of the ‘Encyclopedia of Melbourne’, Dr Andrew Brown-May, who is a senior lecturer in the University’s History Department, says the new publication from Cambridge University Press will make the history of Melbourne accessible to a wide audience.
Dr Brown-May says great cities deserve great encylopedias. “A city is known by its past, its characteristic virtues and troubles, and its ways of life. But in a general sense, the complexity and detail of Melbourne’s past has often been inaccessible and unchallenged. At worst, this has made information about the past unusable and irrelevant”.
The difference between a traditional narrative history and the Encyclopedic format allows historical information to be presented to a wide readership in very accessible ways, according to Dr Brown-May.
“In the absense of a grand overarching historical narrative, the Encyclopedia helps make sense of the connections between people and places that the ‘urban’ encompasses”.
The Encyclopedia of Melbourne is the first encyclopedia of an Australian city, and was inspired in part by the Encyclopedia of New York City.
“The traditional print encyclopedia – that book of knowledge to which one can refer for authoritative facts – is a fantastic beast. A major issue for an editor is not what to put in, but what to leave out”.
Beginning at the Abattoirs and ending at the Zoo, the Encyclopedia of Melbourne covers the places and events, trends and conflicts, missions and milk bars that have given the city its character over the years.
It will be fittingly launched at the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton Gardens at 11am on Monday 24 October by singer, songwriter, broadcaster and Melbourne personality Mike Brady, with the Vice Chancellors of the University of Melbourne and Monash University, and the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Academic Affairs) of Australian Catholic University.
Review copies of the Encyclopedia of Melbourne are available by contacting Adam Ford at Cambridge University Press (8671 1451 / 0417 307 991 / aford@cambridge.edu.au).
Contact:
Dr Andrew Brown-May
History Department
University of Melbourne
Tel: 8344 8993
Mobile:
Email: ajbm@unimelb.edu.au
WHAT:
Launch of the Encyclopedia of Melbourne
WHEN:
Monday 24 October at 11am
WHERE:
Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne
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