Introduction - Student Version

Cast (in order of appearance)

Mick Cahill as Sir Redmond Barry
Nic Velissaris as Ancient Sumerian Shepherd
Chris Bunworth as Ancient Sumerian Tax Collector

The action takes place at the entrance to the exhibition, Mirror of the World at the State Library of Victoria. To the left is a 4000 year old clay tablet, a relic from ancient Sumer with cuneiform writing.

[The signature theme melody starts the audio dramatisation and underscores the mood of the scene.]

Barry
Welcome to Mirror of the World. I am Sir Redmond Barry. It is my esteemed privilege to welcome you to an ever-changing exhibition of some of the rare, beautiful and historically significant books held in the Library’s extensive collections. These books have shaped defined and described the world in which you now reside. When I lived in Melbourne it was a much different place than it is now.

I don't know if you can even imagine this library back in 1856. Nearly 4000 new volumes arrived from England just in time and my good friend Augustus Tulk and I stayed up all night unpacking the crates and shelving the books ourselves. You didn't need to post a bond or provide a letter of introduction like you did to gain admittance to other libraries. Our library was free and open to all over 14 years of age who had clean hands and would observe the decencies of dress and manner.  This Library was not intended to attract the idle and inquisitive or to entertain the frivolous. Rather it was intended to stimulate intellectual culture and to elevate the general public taste.

I have often wondered, Why do we have books? I suppose it is just the natural progression of writing and reading. But why do we read and write? To record things? To preserve things? Perhaps it is to remember things beyond our lifetime.

[Music sweeps us back in time. We hear a heard of goats.]

Shepherd
I did pay.  These goats are less than a year old.

Tax collector
Well, we have no record of you paying last year's taxes.

Shepherd
But I did pay.

Tax collector
There is no record. I will take these 10 goats as payment for last year and these 10 as payment for this year.

Shepherd
Wait, wait. [Sound of rummaging in a bag of clay tiles.] Here, is this it? 

Tax collector
This is the way of planting grain.

Shepherd
[He tosses that tile back into the bag and pulls out another one.] Must be this one.

Tax collector
This is how to make the medicine for coughing. Does it really work?

Shepherd
The wife swears by it. [More rummaging.] What about this one?

Tax collector
This is it. Paid in full. Five sheep…  ten goats…  the 10th month of the 46th year…

Shepherd
So?

Tax collector
This will do.  You have a whole library in there.

Shepherd
I save everything that is written. Somewhere here I have the first part of the story of Innana.

[Music dissolves us out of that scene and back to the present.]

Barry
Luckily for us, humankind started recording things on vellum and paper. From cuneiform tiles to hand written scrolls, early codices to incunabula I have always revered and collected books.When we purchased books for the traveling libraries we made sure that they were bound in full green morocco leather with gilt spine and marbled endpapers. Sometimes we purchased books just because of their rarity. Why I bet you didn't know that in 1871 I managed to purchase Audubon's Birds of America for only 100 pounds. And today it is worth millions. 

The physical items on display in the galleries are changed quite often in order to preserve and protect them. But it is the very existence of these books that fuels my curiosity.

I have always believed in the public's right to indulge an appetite for knowledge so if I may quote the opening lines of one of our famous volumes produced by England’s first printer, William Caxton in 1490. 'Hier begynneth your journey of the Myrrour of the worlde.'

[Musical theme signals the end of the scene.]

Credits

This audio dramatisation was conceived and directed by John Paul Fischbach
Script by John Paul Fischbach
Engineered and mixed by Carl Priestly at Itchyacoustic Design
Orchestrations by David James Nielsen

Recorded in December 2007