In this, the inaugural Treasures from the Rare Book Room podcast, Kerrie Shaw our resident Digitisation Specialist is joined by Dr Anne Llewellyn and Vera Deacon to explore Australian Lepidoptera and their transformations drawn from the life and the Scott family who created this natural history work.

Australian lepidoptera and their transformations drawn from the life, written by Alexander Scott and published in 1864, contains hand coloured illustrations, originally drawn by the authors two daughters, Helena and Harriett Scott. The book was researched and illustrations created whilst the family lived on Ash Island surrounded by the Hunter River estuary. Newcastle Library’s heritage collection contains more than 440,000 items in various formats, from mayoral portraits and Snowball’s plate glass negatives to the original Menzie’s declaration and the Creer & Berkley archive of subdivision maps. A wide range of Newcastle’s stories have been digitised and can be found online at https://newcastle-collections.ncc.nsw.gov.au/library

This is a Newcastle Libraries REAL Production.