In 2016, Melbourne tea and coffee merchant McIvers began selling Ruth Crow tea, a product with a ‘gentle smoked flavour infused with vanilla’. The tea commemorated Ruth Crow as a North Melbournian, as a campaigner with a legacy in ‘just urban planning’ and as a believer in community. This paper argues that Ruth (and her...

The Anglo-Jewish community of Melbourne underwent radical change and massive growth from the 1930s with the immigration of those fleeing Hitler’s Europe. This paper will explore the making of modern Jewish Melbourne through an architectural and social history of the many institutional buildings constructed in the 1950s, 60s and 70s that gave form to this...

The ways urban communities can foster native plants and animals as part of the biodiversity of their neighbourhoods, and the social implications, are being reconceived. Traditionally, nature conservation efforts have focused on protecting threatened species and habitat on public land and educating residents about the need for conservation, with minimal recognition of how households can...

The library as an institution has had a rich history over the past three millennia. It has been fundamental to the preservation and dissemination of knowledge alongside an ever-changing social and urban role. This paper uses a review of the history of the library as a tool to investigate the changing role of the library...

The VCOSS state election platform 2018 presents a vision for Victoria that has the attainment of ‘a good life’ at its core. VCOSS believes a good life should be central to the policy platform of every political party contesting the 2018 Victorian election.