The Fryer Library is one of 13 branches of the University of Queensland Library. It has special relevance to anyone with a PNG or Northern Territory link because of its extensive historical collections of publications, manuscripts, rare books, research theses and photographs of life in those regions acquired over the past 80 years.

You can access the online reference to the Fryer collections here but let me give you a taste of what it contains.

Diaries, correspondence, reports and photographs relating to John J Murphy's pioneering Book of Pidgin English. The bulk of the collection relates to Murphy's service in the Australian administration of PNG in a number of official positions between 1936 and 1969.

Photographs, typescript articles, correpondence, diaries, notes, ephemera, documenting personal experiences of colonial administration in Papua New Guinea. This collection was assembled by Dr Peter Cahill, from material donated by members of the Papua New Guinea Association of Australia.

Slides, 16mm film and black and white photographs taken by Kate Vellacott-Jones, a Canadian journalist in PNG during World War II and later the PNG administration public relations officer.