Victorian College of the Arts Library transcript
By Sarah Charing
The VCA Lenton Parr Library supports the learning, teaching and research activities of the Faculty of the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne.
The Library is named in honour of Lenton Parr, a highly regarded sculptor, arts educator and the Founding Director of the VCA.
The VCA was established in 1972 and the National Gallery School Library collection came across and formed the basis of the VCA Library. The School of Music was founded soon after that. This provided the impetus to develop a collection of music scores, books, journals and sound recordings, to support the music performance and research activities of the school.
With the addition of the Schools of Drama, Dance, Film and TV, and Production, the collection has expanded and has a diverse audiovisual collection, comprising DVD’s, videos and laser disc’s. It also has a large collection of plays, especially by Australian writers, accent tapes, sound effects cds, and a puppetry collection.
The collection now consists of over 60,000 books, 300 journal titles, 45,000 scores, 10,000 vinyl sound recordings, 5,000 CDs, and 2,000 DVDs. Recommendations from staff and students for building the collection are most welcome.
The VCA Library has a number of PCs and Macs that provide access to the library catalogue, electronic resources and audio libraries, the internet, MS Word, Powerpoint and Excel.
Scanning, printing and photocopying facilities are available, including colour printing and photocopying.
Headphones can be borrowed to listen to CDs and vinyl records in our listening room which is equipped with CD, cassette players and turntables.
Four multi-media rooms are available for the viewing of DVDs and videos and can be booked for periods of 3 hours at a time. Two of these rooms have beanbags and the other 2 offer table and chairs as well as a whiteboard. These two room can also be used for group discussion.
The library also has an Assistive Technology room available for students with disabilities.
Study carrels and desks with power points allow for lap-top computers to be plugged in, and wireless access is available. The Library provides access to quiet study areas as well as tables for group discussion.
All University of Melbourne students and staff can borrow from the VCA Library collections. To find out more about our collections, services, and opening hours, check out our VCA Library web site accessible from the Branches link on the University of Melbourne Library homepage or the Faculty of the Victorian College of the Arts website.
Our library staff are always very happy to assist you with your research needs, either in person, by email or phone.
The Lenton Parr Library at the Faculty of the VCA, is located at 234 St Kilda Rd, on the corner of Southbank Boulevard and St Kilda Rd. It is on the first floor of the VCA Hub Building, just upstairs from the Café.
The Library’s hours during the academic year are 8.45 till 6pm Monday, Tuesday and Friday and 8.45 to 7pm Wednesdays and Thursdays. We have extended hours in peak times (after Easter in Semester 1 and just prior to mid-semester in Semester 2), when the library is open till 7pm Monday to Thursday. You can check the VCA website for details.