Recent Acquisition Highlights

December 1998

A key responsibility of the National Library of Australia is the development of a collection of library materials. In keeping with its statutory responsibilities, the Library seeks to build a comprehensive collection of Australian material. This collection is developed in a range of formats – printed materials, electronic formats, manuscripts, oral history materials, pictures, maps and music. The Library also collects a wide range of overseas materials though with a focus in more recent years on material relating to Australia’s own geographic region. This report provides an overview of collecting activity in the National Library over the last period of six months. The report is selective, offering a focus on the Australian program and on notable acquisitions in the overseas collecting areas to which the Library attaches highest priority.

Australian materials

Printed collections

While the Library receives current Australian materials by legal deposit, purchase and through some voluntary deposit arrangements, it also seeks to fill gaps in its holding of older published material. As part of its on-going acquisition program, the Library carefully checks the catalogues issued by antiquarian and second hand dealers. It also responds to offers of material which are made to it by private collectors and vendors.

The Library recently had the opportunity to purchase an interesting collection of ephemeral printed materials relating mainly to the many official functions arranged in New South Wales to mark the inauguration of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. These items were purchased from a private collector. It is possible that these materials were originally in the hands of the printer who prepared them as each item is in mint condition and carries no signatures, inscriptions or other markings. It is expected that with the approach of the celebrations to mark the centenary of Australian federation, this material will be used extensively for reproduction and exhibition.

Because of the strength of its retrospective holdings of Australian materials, the Library’s purchases of older material now tend to be highly selective and to focus on particular rarities. The cost of such material can be high. Over the last six months, two items of note have been secured: an edition of Jacques Julien Houten de Labillardiere’s Relation de voyage a la recherche de La Perouse, fait par ordre du gouvernement Francois, pendant les annees 1791, 1792, 1793 et 1794; and a work by Pomponius Mela De orbis situ Ill…, [also known as De chorographia] published in two volumes in Leiden by Samuel Luchtmans in 1722. The de Labillardiere is a variant of the first edition and appears not to be held elsewhere in Australia. It was purchased from an American dealer. The Mela is a later printing of a classic work which appeared first in 1595 and later in 1761 (both of which are held in the National Library) and which considers the possibility of a land mass in the southern hemisphere which balances the land masses of the north. The work posits the notion of a fifth continent. Its arguments and ideas remained current until the eighteenth century discoveries of Captain James Cook. This item was purchased from the Sydney antiquarian book dealer Hordern House.

Back to the top

Electronic Acquistions

A number of interesting and valuable electronic acquisitions have been made during the six-month period under review. Several of these document issues of major debate and discussion in Australian contemporary life. Their acquisition is consistent with the Library’s efforts to build a comprehensive collection of library materials relating to Australia and the Australian people. Notable acquisitions include:

Official 1998 Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras netcast: this site consisted mainly of streaming video of the festival launch, fair day, pool party, 78’ers documentary and the Mardi Gras parade 28 February 1998. It was a technically advanced site which was online for approximately one month only. All files have been deposited with the National Library on CD-Rom, the first online title which has been received in this medium.

Say NO to Hanson Party: the Library has archived the Say NO to Hanson Party and has gained permission to archive a number of other political sites.

Journal of Syms Covington: This ‘monograph’ is the edited and annotated journal of Syms Covington who was assistant to Charles Darwin on the second voyage of HMS Beagle December 1831-September 1836. This item was published online by the Australian Science Archives Project because the organisation could not afford the cost of publication in print. The journal currently has topical interest as the story of Syms Covington has recently provided the inspiration for the novel Mr Darwin’s Shooter by Roger McDonald.

Sydney 2000 Olympic Games: the Library has now archived the official site for the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games. It details information about the Games, including environmental guidelines, media releases, venue development and details of the proposed sporting events. It features a ‘days to go’ count down to the Sydney Olympics on the Home Page segement of the Archive.

Deliverance: The Library has obtained permission to archive the official site of Dr Philip Nitschke , who performed the world’s first legal medically assisted suicides in the Northern Territory until the repeal of the legislation. The site includes information about the suicides, software that simulates the suicides, stories and letters from people who participated in or who wished to participate in Dr Nitschke’s program and feedback, both for and against euthanasia, from concerned citizens.

Back to the top

Manuscript acquistions

The most substantial acquisition in the period under review was the papers of Dr Phillip Law who has played an outstanding role in Antarctic exploration and scientific investigation in the post Second World War period. The Library first approached Dr Law in 1958 at the time when he was regularly leading Australian scientific expeditions to the Antarctic. In the 1980s, Dr Law promised that his papers would come to the Library, but it is only with the completion of a biography that the collection has now finally been received. Occupying 35 boxes, the papers are one of the finest sources on Australian activity in the post-1945 period. A second instalment is expected before the end of 1998. Going back to the earliest Australian Antarctic expedition, The Library has received as a gift a small but useful collection of the papers of Evan Jones, a doctor on Mawson’s 1911-14 expedition to the Antarctic. The collection includes diaries, notes, letters and photographs. Another small group of Antarctic material comprises letters and cuttings of Captain J.K. Davis concerning his book High latitude.

Papers have been acquired of a number of Australians who were involved in public life, extending from Sir George Reid at the turn of the century to some of the delegates at the 1998 Constitutional Convention. Dame Rachel Cleland has presented the first instalment of the papers of Sir Donald Cleland, who was administrator of Papua New Guinea from 1953 to 1967. A major addition was made to the papers of the journalist Rohan Rivett, including manuscripts and an extensive correspondence. Of particular note are papers on the Stuart Case in South Australia in 1958 and Rivett’s lengthy correspondence with Sir Donald Bradman. The family of Sir John Nimmo has placed in the Library papers relating to his long judicial career together with his role as an arbitrator and chairman of public inquiries. An extensive collection of files was donated by Bill Bowtell, who was an adviser to the Hawke and Keating governments on health and other issues. An unusual acquisition has been the personal files of David Tothill assembled when he was South African Ambassador to Australia. Dr Tothill, who was a 1998 Harold White Fellow at the National Library, wrote a fortnightly column in The Australian; many of the letters in his collection are from members of the public commenting on South African politics and apartheid.

Historians have again been prominent as donors of papers. Patricia Clarke has handed over the papers she collected while writing a biography of the novelist ‘Tasma’ (Jessie Couvreur). The Library has received the papers of the late Geoffrey Fairbairn, relating in particular to Australian foreign policy and the war in Vietnam. John Molony has added a substantial instalment to his collection, including papers on his time in the priesthood, his academic career and his involvement in Catholic and other organisations. Ken Inglis has presented a large body of research material on war and Australian society, as well as correspondence about his various publications over the last forty years. Finally, Patrick O'Farrell has transferred a very large collection comprising his personal papers and material that he has collected over many years relating to the Irish diaspora in Australia and New Zealand; the collection also includes material on the Catholic Church in Australia.

The Library has purchased manuscripts of two of Australia’s most famous writers. A letter of A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson to his aunt in 1896 is of importance in dealing with the reception of The Man from Snowy River, while four letters to his niece in Ireland in 1915-20 deal mainly with the Australian Imperial Force in the Middle East. A volume of Henry Lawson memorabilia comprises an unpublished poem, some correspondence with the publisher George Robertson, press cuttings and commemorative souvenirs.

A number of contemporary writers have placed papers in the Library, some for the first time. The Sydney critic and feminist Meaghan Morris has donated a very large collection of manuscripts, letters, reviews and publications going back to her undergraduate days and her studies in Paris and documenting many aspects of the development of cultural studies in Australia. Manuscripts and correspondence have been received from the novelist Matt Condon, while the poet Judith Rodriguez has presented correspondence, business papers, manuscripts and reviews. Rodney Hall has added the various drafts of his novel The Second Bridegroom to the collection of his papers already held in the Library. Substantial additions have been made to the papers of E.L. Grant-Watson, Michael Noonan, Thomas Shapcott and David Brooks. In the 1970s, Ivan Southall was the first children’s writer to be represented in the Library’s manuscript collection and he has now added an extensive collection of manuscripts and personal papers covering his writings and other activities in the last twenty years. Manuscripts have been received form another children’s writer, Libby Gleeson, as well as papers relating to her involvement in the Australian Society of authors and other literary organisations.

Three major dance archives have been received: the extensive correspondence, photographs, programs, cuttings and costume designs of Gertrude Bodenweiser, the files of the Green Mill Dance Project, and the records of Paul Mercurio and the Australian Choreographic Ensemble. Acquisitions in the arts have been quite diverse, including manuscripts and correspondence of the composers Don Banks and Larry Sitsky, papers of the pianist and singer Edith Harrhy and the painter Byram Mansell, and a journal (1913-23) of Hugh McIntosh, the director of Harry Rickards Tivoli Theatres.

Other additions have included a manuscript of the cricketer Clarrie Grimmett on the art of detecting batmen’s weaknesses, a diary kept by a crew member on HMS Renown when it visited Australia in 1927, letters of the writer Martin Boyd to Lady Hay and papers of Ralph Goodwin on his work for the China Relief Mission in 1946-48. There have been some large transfers of archives from the Returned Services League, the Australian Federation of Consumer Organisations, Australian Catholic Relief and the Australian National Playwrights Centre.

Back to the top

Pictorial acquisitions

In acquiring pictorial records, the Library seeks to document Australian social history, major events in Australian history, the Australian landscape and the lives of notable Australians across a broad spectrum of activity and achievement. The following materials were acquired during the period under review.

An important acquisition was a watercolour by George Rowe depicting Parker & Macord’s fruit shop in Bendigo’s Pall Mall around 1857. George Rowe arrived in Port Phillip in 1852 hoping to benefit from the opportunities provided by the gold rushes. After limited success as a digger, he moved to Bendigo where, in 1857, fifty of his watercolours of the Bendigo and Castlemaine goldfields were exhibited. He returned to England in 1859. His work is represented in a number of Australian collections including the National Library, the State Library of New South Wales, the State Library of Victoria and the University of Melbourne. The representation by Rowe of Parker & Macord’s shop is a lively one with much local detail to interest the social historian including the presence of ethnic minorities. While extending the Library’s holdings of Rowe watercolours, this acquisition also complements a collection of letters written by Rowe which are held in the Manuscript Section.

During the recent period of industrial unrest on the Australian waterfront, the Library commissioned the Melbourne photographer Francis Reiss to prepare a photographic record of scenes on the Melbourne waterfront. The photographs document the picketing of the wharves by members of the Maritime Union of Australia and their supporters, visits to the picket by politicians and media personalities and the involvement of the police. The photographs capture the atmosphere of the strike from the construction of the barricades through to celebrations at the end of the dispute.

A rare photograph of what is believed to be the second of a group of North Queensland Aborigines forcibly taken to the United States in the late nineteenth century to be exhibited as racial specimens was purchased during an acquisitions visit to a Sydney dealer. The photograph which was taken in the United States. shows a group of eight adults (six males and two females). The acquisition fills a gap in the Library’s holdings of pictorial materials documenting the exploitation of aborigines in anthropological exhibitions at the turn of the century.

A photographic portrait of the celebrated Aboriginal cricket team to tour England in 1868 was acquired at auction. The photograph shows ten team members and Charles Lawrence who was the captain of the touring team. The team was made up of fourteen members from the Lake Wallace area of Victoria’s Western District.

A collection of 31 photographs of small businesses in Melbourne was purchased from the photographer Lisa Shulman. The collection gives an emphasis to tools of trade and the appearance of the work place. The photographs will be valuable to researchers as the collection documents a number of trades and businesses that are threatened by competition, and changes in lifestyle and consumer demand. Subjects include the work of mechanics, tailors, cobblers, printers, barbers, fruiterers, dry cleaners, real estate agents, hardware retailers, restaurateurs and a number of others.

A collection of 23 colour photographs documenting aspects of the sex industry was purchased from photographer Gypsy Pennefeather. The photographs were taken at a suburban venue and provide a record of the decoration and interiors of selected premises as well as sex workers in costume. The acquisition fills a gap in the Library’s collection as documentary photographs of the sex industry were not previously held.

Four photographs by Ray Leighton documenting aspects of Australian beach culture in the period 1938-45 were purchased from a Sydney dealer. The photographs illustrate trends in surfing such as synchronised surfing, dual surfing and the use of plywood surfboards, as well as beach fashions. Ray Leighton was a keen surfer who joined the Manly Surf Club in 1932. The photographs provide a useful record of Australian beach culture prior to the surfing boom of the 1960s.

A collection of photographs was acquired from the leading Australian photographer David Moore. Comprising 69 layout sheets with 83 gelatin silver photographs, this acquisition documents aspects of Australian social life and conditions from the 1940s to the 1980s. The collection includes photographs of Aborigines in Central Australia in the 1950s, European migrants arriving in Sydney, Australian country life, inner city slums of the 1940s, early views of Sydney and portraits of national figures including Sir Robert Menzies. The collection acquired by the Library is Moore’s own selection of what he considered to be his best photojournalism in the period to 1980.

The Library has continued to add to its collection portraits and representations of Australians of national significance. Highlights include the following:

  • A pair of portraits of Sir Maurice and Lady O’Connell attributed to William Nicholas (1809-54), a watercolourist, etcher and lithographer who painted numerous portraits of prominent colonists. Sir Maurice O’Connell arrived in Port Jackson with Governor Macquarie in May 1809. As lieutenant governor, he played an important role in the early administration of the colony. In 1810, O’Connell married Mary, the daughter of the former Governor William Bligh
  • A collection of portraits of eminent Australians was acquired from the photographer Jacqueline Mitelman. The collection comprises portraits of Australians from diverse occupations who have sometimes achieved recognition beyond their fields of endeavour. Jacqueline Mitelman is an accomplished portrait photographer. The exhibition prints which the Library has acquired are revealing of the character and personality of her subjects. The acquisition strengthens the Library’s holdings of modern-day Australians who in a range of areas have had a significant impact and influence on public life. Subjects include: Franca Arena; Charles Blackman; Dr Robert Brown; Fred Chaney; Barry Conyngham; Philip Cox; John Elliot; Rennie Ellis; Helen Garner; Xavier Herbert; Archbishop Peter Hollingworth; Michael Leunig; Sir Sidney Nolan; Dinny Nolan Tjamptjinpa; Pat O’Shane; Dr James Peacock; Fred Schepisi; Bruce Smeaton; John Sumner; and Bob Weis.
  • The Library’s photographic record of Australian writers was enhanced by the acquisition of a collection of over 300 portraits taken by the late Alec Bolton, a distinguished Australian publisher and, for many years, a senior member of the National Library’s staff. The photographs were taken during visits by Alec Bolton and his wife, the poet Rosemary Dobson to the homes of writers, many of whom were their friends. The friendship between the photographer and his subjects has produced portraits of great sensitivity that are revealing of personality and domestic relationships. The photographs were taken late in the careers of many of the sitters and document changes brought about by age, success and life experience.
  • A collection of postcards of wrestling champions was purchased from a private collector. The collection is a representative selection of wrestlers who were prominent in the Australian wrestling circuit in the 1930s. The portraits include Pat O’Shocker, King Kong Cox, Matros Kirilenko, Hal Rumberg and Don Noland. The acquisition complements a previous acquisition of photographs of the wrestler Chief Little Wolf who was well-known in Australia in the 1950s.
  • A carte de visite sepia photograph of J.C. Williamson in New York, circa 1865, was purchased from a New York dealer. The photograph is from a set of signed photographs of actors from Wallack’s Theatre. Williamson joined the company as a junior comedian in 1863 at the age of eighteen. He was to stay there until 1871, establishing himself as a young character actor. The photograph was taken by Napoleon Sarony, 37 Union Square, New York and is amongst the earliest photographs of Williamson as an actor. This acquisition complements the Library’s rich holdings relating to Williamson’s life and his later major theatrical career in Australia.
  • Eliza Winstanley was the first Australian-trained actress to achieve success overseas. Her first role was in Clari or the Maid of Milan at the Sydney Theatre Royal in 1844. After a busy touring career in Australia, she went to England to try her fortune. She played in Manchester and London where she joined the company of actor-manager Charles Kean. Her roles included Mistress Quickly in The Merry Wives of Windsor, the role in which she is depicted in an engraving recently acquired by the Library.. Later in her life, Eliza Winstanley developed a second career as a writer. Her novel Shifting Scenes in Theatrical Life was published in 1859. She returned to Australia in the 1870s.
  • Three further items of Australian theatrical interest were acquired during the period under review: a carte de visite portrait (circa 1858) of actress Lola Montez who made a reputation in Australia for her stage appearances in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and the goldfields; a carte de visite sepia portrait of Charles Haddon Chambers (1888), the first Australian playwright to have a success on the London stage; and a sepia portrait of the actor Gustavus Brooke who came to Australia in 1865 and who is credited with introducing Australian audiences to the plays of Shakespeare.
  • An impressive photographic portrait of Andrew Inglis Clark (1848-1907) was purchased from a descendant. Clark was a barrister and judge who was born in Hobart. He stood for the Tasmanian House of Assembly in 1878 and was a delegate to the Australian federation Conference in Melbourne in 1890 and again in Sydney in 1891. In 1894, as Attorney-General under Edward Braddon, he succeeded in amending the Tasmanian Electoral Act by extending the franchise and introducing proportional representation under what has become known as the Hare-Clark system. Clark was one of four members who completed the drafting of the Bill which was to constitute the Commonwealth of Australia. He was later appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court of Tasmania.
  • A pen and wash drawing of William Morris (Billy) Hughes was purchased from a Sydney dealer. The cartoon was published in The Bulletin, 8 August 1818 when the 1914-18 war was still raging and when conscription was a topic of vehement public debate. The cartoon depicts Hughes in full regalia perched on a set of weighing scales indicating public opinion.
  • A collection of cartoons by John Spooner of Australians prominent in public life was acquired from the cartoonist. This collection complements a previous selection of Spooner’s cartoons purchased some years ago through a Canberra dealer. The current collection includes: Paul Keating; Amanda Vanstone; Warwick Fairfax; Bob Hawke; Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer; Jeff Fenech; Lionel Murphy; and Al Grassby.
  • Photographic portraits of four Western Australian lawyers Geoffrey Miller QC, Justice Geoffrey Kennedy, Justice Robert French and Julie Bishop were acquired as part of the Library’s on-going project to document prominent members of the Australian legal profession.
  • The Library was successful in purchasing a photographic portrait of Judith Wright, by Terry Milligan, and the Encyclopedia Britannica Medal awarded to Wright in 1964. The items were acquired at an auction held at the Australian National University to support its North Australian Research Unit Nugget Coombs Forum on Indigenous Studies. The portrait, which was issued in an edition of twelve prints, is signed and dated by Judith Wright. The portrait and medal complement the Library’s holding of materials relating to Judith Wright, including a large collection of her papers held in the Manuscripts Section.

Back to the top

Map acquisitions

A number of map acquisitions have been made in the period under review. Highlights include:

  • Arrowsmith, John. Australia from surveys made by order of the British Government combined with those of D’Entrecasteaux, Baudin…London: Arrowsmith, 1856. In this form, the map is a rare edition of a map which was issued over a period of nearly twenty years.
  • Clermont, Jacques. Carte generale de la terre necessaire au Service de la marine Stable fur un plan fixe sans Antipodes. Paris: s.n., 1780. A world map with an unusual representation of the world’s broad climatic regions depicted pictorially.
  • Menetrier, F. Le Petit Journal mappemonde: dressee et grave specialement pour le petit Journal d’apres les documents le plus regents. [Paris: s.n.? 1903]. An attractive, almost wall map size, map of the world with extensive coloured illustrations of native dress and scenes from all continents.
  • Pontanus, Johannes Isacius. Tabula geograph in qua Europaenae, Africanae, Asianae et circujacentium…[Amstelodami: s.n., 1611]. An attractively coloured map of Africa extending eastwards to include the Middle East, India and China with a depiction of Terra Incognita extending towards New Guinea.
  • The Library has also acquired the 1:50,000 topographic map series for North Korea, bound together as a two-volume atlas.

Back to the top

Asian Collections

Chinese materials

The National Library has recently received a valuable donation of Chinese language works from Dr Nicholas Jose, the distinguished Australian author and China scholar, whose papers are also held by the Library. Some 70 Chinese publications, many signed by their authors, have been taken into the collection. Most are literary works and were collected by Dr Jose while he was Cultural Counsellor at the Australian Embassy in Beijing 1987-90. Published in the late 1970s and 1980s, these books and serials reflect the opening up of China during that period. The collection includes self-published anthologies of poetry and poetry journals which are difficult to acquire from standard commercial suppliers. A number of titles in the collection relate to Australia.

Back to the top

Indonesian materials

After three decades of firm official control, Indonesian publishers are making the most of the recent easing of restrictions. The vigorous publishing activity accompanying the freedom of the press is continuing despite the economic crisis in Indonesia. The Library’s Regional Office in Jakarta is acquiring a wide range of materials covering the tumultuous changes during this important period of transition. Topics range from the reform movement, the dealings of the Suharto family and associates, the riots of May 1998, crimes against ethnic Chinese citizens of Indonesia and materials relating to the serious economic situation.

Back to the top

Indochina

At the National Library Council meeting of 12 June 1998 Council approved expenditure from the Acquisitions Trust Fund for a small collection of books relating to the French in Indochina. The books have recently arrived in the Library. Amongst the items is Jean Delacour’s Les oiseaux de l’Indochine (4 vols.), published in Paris in 1931 and the fruit of five expeditions to the region made by the author over an eight year period. The work is the first of its kind on the birds of Indochina and is a fine example of ornithological illustration.

Other works include accounts of Annam and its inhabitants by the French traveller and explorer Jules Leon Dutreuil de Rhins , and by Jules Silvestre.

Two contemporary travellers’accounts are provided by Henri Philippe Marie, Prince d’Orleans and Ferdinand Francois Phillippe Marie de Montpensier. The latter travelled from Saigon to Angkor Wat by motor car in 1910, probably a world motoring first.

Back to the top

British Foreign Office microfilm

The Library has been building strong microform collections of material from the British Foreign Office Files. A recently purchased collection published by Adam Matthew covers the years of the Kennedy administration, 1960-63 and includes documents relating to U.S. relations with British Commonwealth nations especially the West Indies, Rhodesia, British Guiana, Nigeria, the Pacific Islands and Australia. Foreign Office files, United States of America {microfilm}: Series One. USA – politics & diplomacy 1960-1974 (Public Record Office class FO 371) Part 1. The John F. Kennedy Years, 1960-1963, is expected to provide researchers with valuable primary source documentation for the study of Anglo-American relations, international diplomacy, the looming crisis in Vietnam, as well as United States domestic affairs.

Back to the top