The Friends publishes a newsletter for its members: Flotsam and Jetsam. This is published several times a year and is devoted to news and information about exhibitions, publications, acquisitions and other activities, and to occasional articles relating to Dr Hocken, the establishment of the Library and the different uses of the Collections.
Since 2015 the editor writes an original article for Flotsam and Jetsam which is sometimes related to the topic of the upcoming bi-monthly talk. The title and topic of the original article is noted below. George Davis is the current editor of Flotsam and Jetsam.
The current year of F&Js are available only to members. Earlier issues in PDF format are here:
Hocken Collections Annual Report, 2021
F&J 91 February 2021 – “What to do in your Retirement – Sort Out your Papers.”
Hocken Collections Annual Report, 2020
F&J 90 November 2020 – “Travelling in the Imagination: How the Hocken Archives can Inspire Fiction Writers.”
F&J 89 August 2020 – “Hocken Collections: A Unique Part of a Bigger Picture.”
F&J 86 December 2019 – Hocken Collections Annual Report, 2019.
F&J 85 November 2019 – “The Otago Institute for the Arts and Sciences – Beginnings.”
F&J 84 July 2019 – “Extreme Weather Event 1939 – The Radio Must Go On” – a journey to Highcliff in the snow on one of Captain Scott’s Antarctic sleds, to re-provision trapped radio station operators.
F&J 83 April 2019 – “A Busy Hub – Lawrence, mid-April 1869.”
F&J 82 March 2019 – James Herries Beattie, UNESCO Memory of the World Aotearoa NZ inscription.
F&J 81 November 2018 – “UNESCO Memory of the World” – descriptions of the five Hocken Collections inscriptions on the Aotearoa New Zealand Register at that date.
F&J 80 September 2018 – “Women’s Suffrage Exhibition” – Hocken Collections’ relevant art and archives.
F&J 79 July 2018 – “Turnbull and Hocken” – the relationship between the two collectors
F&J 78 April 2018 – “The Democratising of New Zealand, National Council of Women” – the history of the Dunedin branch of the National Council of Women.
F&J 77 November 2017 – “The Story of A Book” – John Liddiard Nicholas’s Narrative of a Voyage to New Zealand (1817), from author to publisher, to initial purchaser, to the Hocken Collection.
F&J 76 July 2017 – “WW2 – At the Front and Back Home” – notable events, including the establishment, briefly, of a War Administration.
F&J 75 May 2017 – “Moonlight and Mutual Improvement” – early Dunedin and its cultural and intellectual life.
F&J 74 March 2017 – “The Battle of Manners St, 1943.”
F&J 73 December 2016 – “The Minister’s Dilemma” – Minister of Defence James Allen, the Defence Act 1909 and the Military Service Act.
F&J 72 September 2016 – “This is Dunedin calling” – some history of radio in Dunedin, including 4YA.
F&J 71 July 2016 – “Colin McCahon, Family Man.”
F&J 70 May 2016 – “When your ship comes” – The Aldinga (an iron screw steamer) and trips between Australia, Bluff and Port Chalmers in the 1860s.
F&J 69 March 2016 – “The Otago Museum Classical Collection.”
F&J 68 November 2015 – “Setting the stage” – music and theatre in Dunedin in the 1850s and 1860s.