''Australians are bombarded with campaign material during elections,'' the library notes. ''Flyers, policy statements, how-to-vote cards, balloons, banners, posters … the list goes on. But instead of throwing them away, help the National Library of Australia collect them.''

On Wednesday, the library got out for us some of its ancient and modern election ephemera treasures, the most modern of which is a T-shirt chirping ''It's our Ruddy future'', just issued to assist the Prime Minister retain his seat of Griffith on September 7.

Not that even the archivally omnivorous library wants everything the election generates.

''The library is particularly interested in material from marginal electorates, communities with concerns about health services, industrial relations, education, the mining industry and climate-affected regions as well as the outlying areas of Queensland, Tasmania, Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory. If you or your friends and/or relatives in these areas have access to this material (published, not photocopies or digital files), you can forward it for inclusion in the national collection to: Federal Election Campaign Ephemera, Australian Collection Development, National Library of Australia, Parkes Place, Canberra, ACT 2600. Material may also be personally delivered to the library.''

We wonder if the library, which is bound to want novel election billboards, has designs on Liberal candidate for Canberra Tom Sefton, who as reported in Tuesday's column is making a living billboard of himself. He stands out in all weathers, waving and smiling to rush-hour commuters. And his campaign is truly ephemeral in that he has no hope of election and so is as ephemeral as a hailstone in hell. Certainly, the next time the library gives an exhibition of its election ephemera, it should invite him to be a living exhibit.

Do you have a favourite embassy building in this embassy-blessed city? The striking Finnish embassy (has it ever reminded you of a long, metal and glass warship moored at its Yarralumla dock?) would certainly be in this columnist's top three. Now its design has just been explained and its praises sung by Dr Robert Bell.

He is senior curator at the Decorative Arts and Design at the National Gallery of Australia and last week in Canberra he gave a talk, A capital through Finnish eyes: Eliel Saarinen and his design for Canberra. The entry of Saarinen (1873-1950) in the competition for the design of the federal capital city came second behind the Griffins' winner. But what if, Bell the Saarinen authority tantalised, the already celebrated Finn had won?

''Speculation of what might have eventuated in Canberra if Saarinen had won the competition instead of Griffin, and been given the chance to realise his vision in Australia, stimulates imagination … If he had won and his plan had been carried out, Canberra would have been a very different place to what has evolved from Griffin's vision. Would he have moved here instead of to America [Saarinen emigrated to the USA in 1923] - probably not, but it is enjoyable to consider what links might have been forged between what were two very new countries at opposite ends of the world, asserting their independence.

''One enduring link back to Saarinen's time is the Finnish embassy building, designed to reflect the high technology and love of nature that are such important aspects of modern Finnish life and culture. An open architectural competition for the building was held in 1997 and won by Vesa Huttunen of Hirvonen-Huttunen Architects. He drew his inspiration for this building, rather like a long metal and glass ship moored at a dock, from the armoured coastal vessel Ilmarinen of the wartime Finnish navy.''

Only in America! A reader holidaying in the US has sent us this funny picture of the famous Marge Simpson hairdo topiary hedge at the Simpsons' Theme Park in fun-loving Orlando, Florida.

Just kidding! Contradicting my profession's sacred code of ethics I've made all that up!

In fact, this is the latest entry on observant Mel Edwards' clever blog/gallery ''Nah [no], it's Canberra'' where she posts her photographs of Canberra things that, at first sight, look as if they must be foreign things in another country.

Surely it's the aforementioned Marge Simpson topiary hedge in Florida, she teases. But then she owns up that ''Nah, it's two trees in Gladstone Street, Fyshwick.''