Special Collections and Displays

Rare Book Collection

Our Rare Book Collection contains hundreds of rare and valuable books, most of them donated over the years by ex-Collegians and other interested people. They are housed in glass-fronted locked cupboards in the Rare Books Bay. This collection, like the rest of the library, continues to grow and develop.

Recently a former resident, Mr Andrew Mander Jones, very generously donated over 200 books to us from the private library of his late aunt, Phyllis Mander Jones, ex-Mitchell Librarian. Most of these will be housed in our Rare Book Collection.

St Mark's Collection

This is a special collection of books relating to the College and its history, as well as publications by/about Collegians and ex-Collegians including such illustrious people as Sir Henry Simpson Newland, Sir Archibald Grenfell Price, Don Dunstan, Geoffrey Dutton and Colin Kerr.

The Angry Penguins Display

This is a permanent display set up in the library because two of the founders of The angry penguins magazine were St Mark's College residents at the time of its inception.

It was founded in 1940 as a result of the upsurge in artistic and literary Modernism which had swept into Australia by the mid-1930s. In fact it had begun in Adelaide and was centered around Adelaide University and its residential college St Mark's. There was an outburst of writing, publishing and debate ranging from classical poetry to intentionally experimental work.

Avant-garde poets met regularly in Paul Pfeiffer's rooms at the College and included another Marksman, D B (Sam) Kerr.

The magazine never really recovered from the Ern Malley Hoax of 1944 and by 1946 it had folded, but during its five years of existence it had shaken Adelaide's cultural conservatism.

The Rare Book Display Cabinet

Some of our rare books are on display in the Rare Book Cabinet, including such treasures as Abelard and Heloise. Latin text. (1616); and, John Hunter's Treatise on the blood, inflammation, and gun-shot wounds. 1794.

This display is changed periodically.