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'Professor John Ritchie and all the staff of the Australian Dictionary
of Biography are constantly grateful for daily use of the wonderful resources
of the National Library of Australia. Without the NLA, the ADB could not
exist.' an indispensable
resource for all my research into different aspects of Australian history
the National Library is a living record of the countrys
intellectual, cultural and civic life one of the great
strengths of the National Library of Australia has been its frontline people
... The quality of service given, and the degree of interest taken by staff to
ensure satisfaction, consistently has been of the highest order
It is a
privilege to live in Canberra and be able to use such a wonderful
facility The National
Library is my heart [The National
Library] is home to one of the two greatest collections of Australiana in
existence and
on the rare occasions when something is not in the
Collection, the custodians move heaven and earth to borrow or obtain a copy for
me. You may think that I am privileged, and so I am, but so is everyone who has
discovered and used this great free public institution It has been a great
pleasure working in the Manuscript Room with its excellent facilities, its
superb surroundings and its dedicated staff The material held
by the National Library is a precious resource for all Australians. That staff
care for it so passionately ensures that our heritage is in good
hands My visits over 40
years
were always enjoyable and profitable
For the spasmodic
reader from afar, with hopes of accomplishing much in a relatively little time,
the service offered by Library staff was superb
The very atmosphere of
the Library inspired maximum effort
In my research I
have worked in other libraries in Australia and overseas. I have not found
anywhere anything to equal the level of services provided in the Petherick Room
and [such] an atmosphere of friendship and helpfulness
I am too secular a
person to have a sacred site. However, after repeated visits to the
Manuscript Room, I now feel it to be one of the special places in my life, a
site which brings out the best in me
On a rather more prosaic level, I
know that if I am having trouble finding any book or serial, I am more likely
to find it in the National Library than anywhere else As a bibliographer I am a demanding user of
the Library. The librarians, chiefly those in the Petherick Room, cope calmly
and cheerfully with all these demands. A decade ago I was working on the first
volume of my bibliography and made this acknowledgement: Many weeks spent
at the National Library of Australia were made a pleasure due to the staff of
the Petherick Room, who were unfailingly helpful. Now in a new century,
engaged with another large project, the Petherick Room has moved and the staff
changed, but I can certainly say the thanks remain unchanged In every way
the National Library is
a key centre of scholarship in this country, not only for the range and
accessibility of its holdings but also for the expertise and enthusiasm of its
staff For scholars working on Australian
material, the National Library is the best in the world. The combinations of
staff and graciousness, architecture and accessibility, and location and
facilities make it a wonderful place for study The National Library of Australia is of
course one of the central institutions of Australian public culture and as such
it plays a key role in the generation of debates in the public sphere
The Librarys central role in providing the information from which
Australias public intellectuals continue to reassess the nation is likely
to become more and more important Your Stories 'I owe a successful career as a school librarian to the National
Library. In the 40s I had completed the Preliminary Certificate of the Library
Association of Australia, then marriage and family inrtervened and 15 years
passed. One day in May 1965 I was in the Old Library in Kings Ave. A friend
working there told me that the National Library was holding classes for the LAA
for the Registration Certificate and that very afternoon I was at my first
class at St Mark's Library. At the end of 1967 I sat for my last exam in the
new Library and succesfully qualified as a member of the Library Association of
Australia. Twenty years of very satisfying work followed and all thanks to
those excellent free classes conducted by the National Library.' 'I think it was in 1985 that I went to Canberra for an afternoon meeting of magazine editors organised by the Australia Councils Literature Board. Travelling from Western Australia meant arriving the evening before, leaving the next morning free. What will I do? I thought, and, looking at the map decided to go to the National Library of Australia. What will I do? I thought when I got to the Library, and then I saw that there was a manuscript section. What will I look at? I wondered, and then thought Id look up Slessor, since I had always enjoyed reading Kenneth Slessors poems. Lo and behold, there in the catalogue was his name! Up in the lift to the Manuscripts and Special Collections I went. Idiotic, blundering tourist I might have been, but it wasnt long before I was looking at the pencilled drafts of Five Bells, the greatest poem in Australian literature. There the pages were in front of me, the actual pages in which Slessor neatly and then fumblingly pencilled his way to Time that is moved by little fidget wheels / Is not my Time It was like magic, a transportation in time. Perhaps only a poet and a scholar could fully understand the thrill this recollection still provokes, like Jack climbing the beanstalk and finding no giant around to frighten him back to earth. Ive been studying Slessors writing on and off ever since. In 1990, I was lucky enough to receive a Harold White Fellowship, and spent three months poring over Slessors pages. The Library staff were unfailingly friendly and helpful, and the Fellowship conferred numerous benefits from direct access to the Librarys compactus, where I risked being squashed as flat as an A4 page, to discounts in the Brindabella Bistro. I shared camaraderie with Roger Millis, another Harold White Fellow, as well as with Joy Hooton and other scholars who regularly used the Library. Hazel Rowley and I sat side by side in the Manuscripts Room as I puzzled over Slessors shorthand and she read the manuscripts of Christina Steads novels en route to writing her Stead biography. My own work led to the publication of Kenneth Slessor: Poetry, essays, war despatches, war diaries, journalism, autobiographical material and letters (University of Queensland Press, 1991) and the Collected Poems (Angus & Robertson, 1994) which Geoffrey Dutton and I edited together. It was one of the happiest periods of my scholarly life and I have returned regularly to the Library for reading and meetings about research ever since. Some of my own poetry, letters and other manuscripts are now housed there. I have
an undying love of manuscripts; they show the reality of writing and counter
the sense of books and authors as monuments, which they tend to become once
they enter the canons of the great and famous. I love books too, but
manuscripts are books humanised. They are also a reminder that libraries are
more than collections of books especially libraries such as the National
Library of Australia. The Library, it seems to me, is one of the few things in
Australia about which its hard to say anything bad. For me, it is
probably the countrys most sacred site. It is more important than any of
us, and deserves our devotion. Now, if I could only put a rope behind it and
tow it over to Perth.'
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