Last week I took a trip to the Melbourne Museum where I had the opportunity to check out the Revolutions: Records & Rebels exhibition. The exhibition “looks at the late 1960s as a moment when youth culture drove optimistic idealism, motivating people to come together and question the establishment across every area of society” (Melbourne Museum, 2019).
The exhibition itself was fantastic, with each room having its own look and feel (depending on the records or rebels they where showcasing). Visitors were given a set of headphones before entering the exhibition. The headphones allowed us to listen to different music from the 1960s, with songs changing depending on which room you walked through.
To my delight many books that featured in the exhibition. Surprisingly J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series also made the cut! Here’s what Revolutions: Records & Rebels had to say about this epic fantasy series;
“I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: someone has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.
Tolkien’s epic fantasy, The Lord of the Rings became hugely popular in the 1960s when it was reprinted in paperback. The Tolkien Society of America first met in 1965 at Columbia University. Many parallels were drawn between the story and the Vietnam War, while the peaceful Shire depicted in the books was taken as a ‘hippie’ ideal community. The Lord of the Rings is now the second most printed book of all time” – (Melbourne Museum, 2019).
Domonique Mileto, Teaching & Learning Librarian.
