About
Australia's working and teaching museum of typography and printing located at Footscray, Victoria. Specialising in retention of traditional printing, both the equipment and the knowledge.
Our collection
Machinery, printing types, artefacts and documents relating to the craft and practice of the printing industry. Although the items in the collection were used in Australia, mainly Victoria, the technology represents worldwide practice. Supplementary items are examples of other communication methods e.g. telegraphy, telephony and computers, all of which helped, and also hindered, the printing industry. Many of the artefacts and documents relate to thousands of individual printing jobs, thus opening a window to hundreds of organisations served by the printing firms. Other documents relate to the business of printing and the suppliers of machinery, paper, inks and services to the trade. There are two libraries: the reference library (related to printing or communications) and the "Library of Books as Artefacts" where the interest is not "who wrote it?" but "who printed it?" and how was it designed and printed. Then there is the collection of posters, books and other items printed at the Museum by visitors who learnt how to plan, typeset and print by hand. The majority of these visitors are people who normally use computers to design and print and wanted to enhance their understanding by learning the ancient crafts.
Themes: Connecting Victorians by transport and communications, Shaping cultural and creative life
