History Or Hoarding? With Annabel Crabb

Plagued by the question "Am I a hoarder?" journalist Annabel Crabb visits Australia's oldest library and learns that her own issues with 'collecting' historical items are MINOR. The State Library of NSW is known for books, but its underground vaults are teeming with oddities: Bits of Henry Lawson. Military antiques. HUMAN HAIR!

This episode's speakers:

• Maggie Patton - Head of Collection Acquisition & Curation
• Louise Anemaat - ...

The grim history behind the NSW State Library's doors. Opened in 1826, exclusively to the rich white men who could pass a secret "blackballing" test, the doors were redesigned during World War II to depict Indigenous people. But their origin story is wild, as Annabel Crabb discovers.

This episode's speakers:

• Damien Webb — Manager of the Indigenous Engagement Branch
• Richard Neville — Mitchell Librarian

You can see t...

A charming restaurateur, ballroom dancer, coin collector and porn aficionado. A closely-guarded trove of colonial gold coins in the William Dixson collection. A daring heist! Annabel Crabb dives into the obsessive world of numismatics and finds the history of Australian currency is full of crooks.

This episode's speakers:

• Jim Noble - Numismatist
• Julia O'Shea - ABC Researcher
• Oral History Librarian Rosie Block interviews librarian J...

Long before the Internet introduced us to twinks and furries, the Victorian era had explored 'scandalous' gay porn via explicit love letters between men. The Library locked such filth away, lest it corrupt the people, yet curiously, simultaneously chose to preserve it. Annabel Crabb finds an erotic literary treasure, penned by Oscar Wilde's most famous and tumultuous lover, that was lost in the vaults for a century.

This episode's s...

Violating the "quiet" rule. The extraordinary, hilarious, heart-warming story of two young Indigenous trainee library curators who started on the same day at the Library 35 years ago, and became best friends, found hidden stories on everything from the First Fleet to the Freedom Ride and as Annabel Crabb learns, revolutionised the State Library of NSW collections forever.

This episode's speakers:

• Melissa Jackson - Librarian, Indi...

Every hoarder's nightmare… SMASHING an irreplaceable, precious antique. Annabel Crabb pieces together the tale of prospector Bernhardt Holtermann. 

Gold Rush mogul. Early photography enthusiast. He found Australia's largest reef gold nugget (153kg!) and produced the world's biggest wet plate glass negative. Then something very bad happened.

This episode's speakers:

• Margot Riley - Curator 
• Louise Anemaat — Exe...

Something is rotting, deep in the stacks of Australia's oldest library. It's microfilm. Annabel Crabb dives into the unsettling world of historical preservation in the age of digital storage, asking: Does data live forever in the cloud? How can I protect my photos? Are my emails secure? Could the hoarding of historical items be the correct solution after all? Why can't we just print it all out?

This episode's speakers:

• Maggie Pat...

Nestled alongside the Library's famous treasures — their First Fleet journals, Shakespeare folios, mementos of writers from Henry Lawson to Charlotte Wood – are millions of seemingly simple objects. Old menus, bus timetables, Valentine's Day cards… capturing an era, and the lives of some truly fabulous nobodies. Annabel Crabb explores the lives of the lesser-known people that curators have chosen to preserve.

This...