Therese O'Connell Poster Collection

Fonds

Identifier: ocot

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The 62 posters listed in the Therese O’Connell Poster Collection were produced between the 1970s to 2000s by activist organisations, trade unions, and other groups. Most of the posters come from New Zealand sources, such as the Wellington Committee on Vietnam, Working Women’s Alliance, Te Matakite o Aotearoa, Women's National Abortion Action Campaign, and the New Zealand Federation of Labour. Around one quarter of the posters had been laminated.

The business-type cards were created by Therese O’Connell. One copy is listed in the finding aid.

Digital images of most of the posters are displayed in the online finding aid. To view the larger sized images, click on the thumbnails within the individual poster records. Access to and use of these images is subject to various conditions (please see the poster records for details). The digital images are displayed with the kind permission of the copyright owners. While the Victoria University of Wellington Library has endeavoured to locate and contact all such parties, our efforts have not always been successful. Please contact the J C Beaglehole Room if you have any further information concerning copyright ownership.

Please note that one poster in the collection features content that some people may find disturbing. Access to the digital image of this poster is subject to further conditions.

Dates

1970s - 2000s

Conditions governing access to and use of this collection

Access to the Therese O'Connell Poster Collection is unrestricted, but use of the majority of posters and online digital images is restricted as follows:

"This material has been copied by the Library of Victoria University of Wellington under Section 55-3 of the Copyright Act 1994. You may make a digital or print copy for your personal research and study use. You may not make copies of an image or part of an image for other persons, or distribute an image or part of an image to other persons by any means whatsoever including mounting the image on a server, without the written permission of Victoria University of Wellington and the copyright owner/owners. You may not modify an image or incorporate an image or part of an image in another work without the written permission of Victoria University of Wellington and the copyright owner/owners. You must include this copyright statement in any copy that you make."

Some digital images are subject to a slightly modified version of these conditions, while others are available for use under a Creative Commons license. Please see the individual poster records for details.

Historical note

The New Zealand political activist and trade unionist Therese O’Connell (b.1951) was born and raised in New Plymouth. She became involved with the feminist and socialist movements while attending Victoria University of Wellington in the early-1970s. From 1975 to 1989 O’Connell worked for the Clerical Workers’ Union and also held official positions in the Wellington Trades Council, New Zealand Federation of Labour and New Zealand Council of Trade Unions. Other notable roles include vocalist in the Wellington-based Irish band Ourselves Alone and as part of the satirical/musical duo Glory Box with Pinky Agnew. In 2004, she was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the trade union movement.

The Therese O’Connell Poster Collection consists of 62 posters produced by trade unions and other groups (including some overseas sources) between the 1970s and 2000s, together with five copies of a business-type card. The posters were collected by O’Connell and donated by her to the Victoria University of Wellington Library in 2010. The posters and cards were received in one folder and have been arranged as a single series in alphabetical order.

Other posters collected by O’Connell were donated to the Library in 1999 by the New Zealand Public Service Association. These have been listed separately as the Dan Long Union Library Poster Collection. Both poster collections are valued by the Victoria University of Wellington Library as a rich visual record of political and trade union activity, and for complementing related holdings in the J C Beaglehole Room.

The cataloguing of the Therese O’Connell Poster Collection was undertaken in 2013, as part of a project to add digital poster images to the online finding aids of the Dan Long Union Library and Therese O’Connell poster collections. This project was funded by the Dan Long Trust and the Library is grateful for this assistance.

Extent

5 linear_centimeters

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Arrangement

The posters are listed in a single series and for the most part are numbered sequentially.

Posters were listed in 2013 by Sue Hirst (Special Collections Librarian) and Michael Brown (Poster Digitisation Librarian).