Recent Acquisition Highlights

April 1999

Introduction

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. This report gives a selective overview of collecting activity in the Library over the period between November 1998 and April 1999.

I. Australian Printed Materials

1998 Federal Election

The Library continued its practice of collecting as extensively as possible to cover the October 3, 1998 poll. Policy statements, publicity, promotional material—campaign literature, how-to-vote material—virtually anything published connected with the election was targeted. Contact was made with all 1435 candidates (only 25% responded), all 77 registered parties (response was again low at 30%) and 126 lobby groups (a better response rate was achieved with 60% of groups sending some material). Material collected so far totals about 4000 items, housed together as a collection alongside similar material from earlier federal elections. The Library now has significant holdings of election material dating back to the 1960s, with particular strengths for the period of about the last 15 years.

Rare Australian children’s books—microfiche collection

The Library purchased a collection on microfiche of over 290 children’s books relating to Australia, Captain Cook and the South West Pacific published before 1890. Although the Library has a very strong collection of Australian children’s books a sample check of holdings of this collection revealed only a 50% holding rate. The likelihood of acquiring works of this period in the antiquarian market place is unlikely. A special benefit of this acquisition is that it library users to be directed to the microfiche copy of a title already in the collection thus enhancing preservation of the original edition. The microfiche collection was produced by the Friends of the State Library of South Australia.

Artists’ books

Artists’ books are books produced by artists that are intended to be viewed as visual art objects. Like the related but slightly narrower category of the traditional livres d’artistes (books richly illustrated with original prints by well-known artists published in limited editions), this category of acquisitions encompasses some fine and often very expensive examples of book arts. By necessity, the Library must be very selective. Recent acquisitions include five artists’ books produced by artists from Canberra and Goulburn, including Vladimir Holan and Emma Veal and a further work by Dianne Longley entitled Sensory Memorandum. The Library already holds other artists’ books by Dianne Longley, who is highly regarded in this field.

Performing arts

Since the 1970s when the Library acquired a large collection of manuscripts, music, programs and playscripts from the J. C. Williamson organisation the Australian performing arts collection has been steadily growing. The programs and ephemera component, known as the PROMPT collection, now numbers over an estimated 250,000 individual items.

Retrospective material continues to be acquired through donation and purchase from specialist bookdealers in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. In addition, the Library purchases from a collector in New York who concentrates on Australia performers active overseas. Current material is acquired direct from Australian companies as well as the major publisher Playbill. The Library’s Acquisitions Consultant in London gathers material for the large number of Australians performing in the United Kingdom.

Programs and ephemera are not individually catalogued on the national bibliographic database. Instead minimal level entries for composite files are added to the Library’s online catalogue. Mindful that this large and nationally significant collection needs to have greater exposure and to enable wider access a series of PROMPT Finding Aids are being added to the Library’s Web Page. These listings cover individuals or companies for which the Library has significant holdings. So far eleven finding aids have been compiled, including Australian born actresses Marie Lohr and Dame Judith Anderson, ballet companies The Kirsova Ballet and Ballet Rambert in Australia, actor/dancer/choreographer Sir Robert Helpmann, performer extraordinaire Barry Humphries, and lists for various aspects of the J C Williamson collection. One of the most recent lists covers Australian TV soap opera stars appearing in British pantomimes.

Rarities

Several notable items have been acquired which were not known to Ferguson or other standard bibliographies and not held previously:

· The Sailor Boy and Other Stories. Published in New York in about 1840, this is a charming miniature chapbook for children with one short story about a kangaroo.

· Sammlung interessante und durchgang zweckmassig abgefasster Reisebeschreibungen for die Jugend. The rare first edition of a German work compiled by J. H. Campe and published in Hamburg in 1785-1789, this is the first six volumes of a famous series of travel books for children. Two of the volumes recount Cook’s voyages.

II. Music

While almost all commercial book publishers willingly comply with legal deposit, contemporary music publishing of Australian compositions is currently in a state of flux. The Library has experienced a steady decline in the receipt of legal deposit copies of printed music for some time, and it has been hard to establish exactly what is being produced. It has become apparent that the Library has not been successful in acquiring an appropriate coverage of contemporary Australian composition.

A visit to the Australian Music Centre in Sydney in October 1998 confirmed the Library’s perception that there is less formal publishing of contemporary Australian music works, and that composers either self-publish or place compositions with the Centre for distribution on demand as facsimile reproductions. The Centre provided copies of all its catalogues, and these were subsequently searched against the Library’s holdings. This searching identified that there was a significant gap in the Library’s holdings of contemporary Australian composers. The Library has placed orders with the Centre for approximately 4000 scores to ensure a more comprehensive representation of this category of material within its music collection. Steps are also being taken to bring legal deposit to the attention of composer-publishers, along with the desirability of preserving Australia’s musical heritage.

III. Microform Project

The increasing availability of newspaper and serial titles on microfilm has created an opportunity for the Library to add many new titles to the collection, fill in gaps, and replace poor or defective copies. In a major project over $125,000 has been spent on filling in gaps in holdings of major state capital dailies such as The Advertiser (Adelaide, 1960-1975), The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), The Daily Mirror (Sydney), The Mercury (Hobart), as well as acquiring regional Australian newspaper titles such as The Advocate (Burnie, Tas.), The Barrier Miner (Broken Hill), The Bendigo Advertiser, The Central Western Daily (Orange), The Daily Advertiser (Wagga Wagga), The Gippsland Standard, The Illawarra Mercury, Italo-Australian (Sydney, 1933-1940), Nagambie Herald (Vic.), The Northern Daily Leader (Tamworth), Oceanis (a Greek newspaper published in Sydney in 1915), Victoria Colonist, and Western District Advertiser (Geelong) and The Wagin Argus & Arthur, Dumbleyung, Lake Grace Express (Wagin, WA).

A number of overseas titles have also been purchased on microfilm following a similar strategy. Titles acquired include The Colonial Gazette (London, 1843-47), Asahai Evening News (Tokyo), Eastern Buddhist (Kyoto, 1921-1958), Burma News (1888-1965), The Auckland Star (1870-1920), and The Auckland Weekly News (1877-1934).

IV. Electronic Acquisitions

The number of titles in the PANDORA (Preserving and Accessing Networked Documentary Resources of Australia) Archive continues to grow. The titles selected reflect our policy to include a wide range of authoritative resources of long term research value that represent the diverse interests of Australians publishing on the World Wide Web. The following are just two of many titles that have been added to the PANDORA Archive in the last two months.

The Anti-Jabiluka Mine Mailing List documents the views of those involved in campaigning against the Energy Resources of Australia Jabiluka uranium mine and is available in the Archive at http://www.nla.gov.au/nla/pandora/antijab.html. We are attempting to balance these views by archiving the Energy Resources of Australia Pty Ltd Web site as well, but have so far not received permission from the company to do so.

An award winning site, The International Diabetes Web Site provides information for diabetes sufferers, researchers, doctors and other medical staff, students, and those who want to prevent it. It is available at http://www.nla.gov.au/nla/pandora/idi.html

V. Manuscript Acquisitions

In the six months under review the Library has acquired a number of nineteenth century letters and other manuscripts. It purchased from a dealer in London a group of letters of settlers written in 1838-42 describing the voyage from England, conditions in New South Wales, travels in the colony and encounters with escaped convicts. A descendant of the notable Melbourne theatre and art critic James Smith has donated a collection of his papers, including letters, cuttings and an attractive commonplace book dating from the 1840s. Two diaries have been acquired of a Sydney businessman, Walter Lloyd, describing in detail his visits to Britain and Europe in 1887 and 1899.

Moving into the early twentieth century, the Library successfully bid at a London auction for a group of papers of Dame Nellie Melba. They comprise 30 letters written from various parts of the world to her friend Lady Susan Fitzclarence, as well as photographs, menus and cuttings. One of the menus has the signature and a self-portrait of Charlie Chaplin. The letters are extremely lively and refer among other things to Melba’s reception in Melbourne and a proposal from a wealthy but corpulent suitor. Other purchases have been made through the Library’s agent in London. The diary kept by Lady Bayer on a world cruise with her husband in 1922-23 gives detailed impressions of Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Hobart and Sydney, as well as some of the countryside. The two albums of photographs, cuttings, itineraries and programs of Captain Michael Farebrother, the Aide-de camp to the Governor of South Australia in 1944-47, are a useful addition to the Library’s vice-regal collections.

A variety of modern personal papers have been acquired. Denis Warner, the distinguished foreign correspondent and military historian, has donated his huge personal archive to the Library. Covering fifty years, they include an extensive correspondence with political leaders in South East Asia, newspaper proprietors and editors in many countries, historians, refugees from Indo-China, and fellow-journalists, such as Richard Hughes. There are also a large number of his notebooks and the drafts and research material for some of his books on Vietnam and military history. The papers of another journalist, Siobhan McHugh, mainly relate to Australian women who were involved in the Vietnam War. The files were assembled when she was writing her book Minefields and Miniskirts (1993).

Another very large collection has been presented by the economist John Edwards. Edwards was economics adviser to Paul Keating and in 1996 published a major biography of the Prime Minister. The collection consists of Edwards’ own papers, including his handwritten records of conversations with Keating, the drafts of his book, copies of material from Keating’s personal papers and other research material.

Papers have been received of two Australian scholars who achieved international fame. The daughter of Sir John Eccles, who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1963, has donated various family papers including her father’s unpublished memoirs. Professor John Passmore, the doyen of Australian philosophers, has transferred a fine collection of correspondence, lectures, manuscripts and publications, including biographical material assembled for his book Memoirs of a Semi-detached Australian. Other academics now represented in the collection are the anthropologist Dawn Ryan and the classicist Mervyn Austin.

Literary collections again figure prominently among recent acquisitions. The Library has purchased the typescript of Miles Franklin’s novel Ten Creeks Run, published in 1930 under the pseudonym of ‘Brent of Bin Bin’. Major additions have been made by the poets Alan Gould, Kevin Hart and Mark O’Connor, the novelist Marion Halligan, the playwright Alan Seymour and the historian and social commentator Humphrey McQueen. The Sydney poet Peter Boyle, who has achieved prominence in recent years, has transferred the first instalment of his manuscripts. Bruce Pascoe, who founded and edited for 17 years the magazine Australian Short Stories, has passed over a large collection of manuscripts, production and editorial files and correspondence. One of the most significant acquisitions has been the papers of David Marr. They include research files for his books on Sir Garfield Barwick and David Combe, but the bulk of the papers relate to his work, extending over eleven years, on the life and letters of Patrick White. They bring together in one place copies of about 4000 of White’s letters, as well as records of interviews, research material arranged by themes, photographs, cuttings, drafts of the biography and selected letters. Marr himself is a prolific and skilled correspondent and his own correspondence with friends and enemies of White are not only a splendid source on White but an important record on Australian cultural life in the 1980s and 1990s. The Library has by far the largest collection of White letters and the acquisition of the Marr Papers consolidates its position as the permanent centre for Patrick White studies.

The other arts are represented among recent acquisitions. Papers have been received of the dancer Peggy Van Praagh, the painter Jeffrey Smart and the art historian Bernard Smith. Of special note are the archives of the musician Keith Humble. Humble, who died in 1995, was one of Australia’s leading composers and pianists and the first Professor of Music at La Trobe University. Mrs Humble has presented the first large instalment of his papers, comprising original scores and sketches, lectures and other teaching materials, programs and reviews.

A few collections deal substantially with Australian territories. Professor Bill Gammage has transferred papers and photographs of four men who led and took part in the famous Hagen-Sepik patrol in western New Guinea in 1938-39. The Library already holds the extraordinary journal John Black kept on this patrol. The papers and thousands of photographs of Jim Taylor, Pat Walsh and Ian Downs, as well as further papers of Black, provide superb documentation of one of the great exploring journeys of the twentieth century. Turning to the Antarctic, the Library has received the papers of Elizabeth Chipman, one of the first three Australian women to set foot on the Antarctic mainland. As well as her papers and photographs on her visits to the Antarctic, the papers contain correspondence and other material assembled when she was writing a study of women in the Antarctic. The Library has also received the remaining papers of John Béchervaise, who died in 1998. Béchervaise, who was a poet, historian, teacher and mountaineer, led three of the ANARE expeditions in the 1950s, which are recorded in meticulous detail in the papers acquired by the Library in 1989. His later papers cover many subjects, but in particular his biography of John Rymill, the South Australian farmer who led the expedition to Graham Land in 1934-37.

VI. Pictorial Acquisitions

The Library’s intention to acquire a range of pictorial materials that document Australian social history, major events in Australian history, the Australian landscape and the lives of individual Australians was furthered by the following acquisitions between November 1998 and April 1999.

1. SOCIAL HISTORY AND MAJOR EVENTS

Burke and Wills Expedition

The Library was successful in acquiring lot 91, The Exploring Party Coming upon an Encampment of Natives, an oil on canvas by Henricus van den Houten 1801-1879, at Sotheby’s sale on Tuesday 24 November 1998.

The work depicts the exploring party of Burke and Wills meeting a group of Aborigines. One of the Aborigines is conversing with George Landells, second in charge; Landells and the Aborigine are gesturing in a way that indicates they are talking about the route the party wishes to take. Other Aborigines are standing or seated peaceably nearby. The leaders of the party are portrayed in enough detail to allow them to be identified: Landells, on the foremost camel, Burke on his grey horse, Wills next to Landells, and further back Dr Hermann Beckler and expedition artist Dr Ludwig Becker. Van den Houten has placed the exploring party in a well-vegetated landscape, with a cascade in the foreground and a mountainous backdrop.

The subject of the painting—the Burke and Wills Expedition of 1860-1861—is of immense national significance. The expedition succeeded in its aim of being the first expedition to cross Australia from South to North. The tragic ending of the expedition, in which three of the four members of the crossing party—Burke, Wills and Grey—died, as well as a number of other men in the support parties, caused a national outpouring of grief at the time. It has since become enshrined as a ‘national story’ of similarly epic proportions to the Gallipoli story, sharing its elements of bravery against overwhelming odds, comradeship, naive optimism, and of blunders that resulted in lives wasted.

The acquisition complements the Library’s existing manuscript and pictorial holdings related to Burke and Wills. These holdings include part of Burke’s diary (16 December 1860–20 January 1861), the diary of the survivor King, and diary of Wills.

Pioneer aviation photographs circa 1910-1938

An album of 65 French press photographs of early aviation was purchased at auction. The album includes photographs of flights to Australia by pioneer aviators, such as F. Matthews and O. Cathcart-Jones.

Melbourne Olympic Games, 1956

A portrait photograph of three officials of the Victorian Olympic Council, 1956, was acquired from a Sydney dealer. The portrait includes C. J. Gray (Secretary, Treasurer), W.J. Uren (Chairman) and E.S. Tanner, Secretary of the Games Organising Committee.

Five press photographs of the Games were acquired at auction. The photographs show the Australian men’s 4 x 400 metres relay team (silver medal winners); medal winners in the hammer throw; US pole vaulter receiving a gold medal after breaking the world record; International Olympic Committee president Avery Brundage congratulating winners of the 800 metre race at which a world record time was recorded; and a reunion at the Melbourne Olympic village eight years after the Games between Australian fencer Alex Szoeke and Hungarian swimmer George Tumpek.

Australian Food and Wine Writers’ Festival, 1997

South Australian photographer, Michal Kluvanek, was commissioned to photograph the inaugural Australian Food and Wine Writers’ Festival held in Adelaide from 9-12 October 1997. Sixty photographs were selected to provide a detailed photographic documentation of the Festival including portraits of Australia’s leading food and wine writers, restaurateurs, broadcasters and critics, panel discussions and debates, as well as a number of distinguished international writers at the Festival. Food and wine writing has become an increasingly popular literary genre in recent years.

Small businesses

A collection of 59 photographs of small businesses in Melbourne was purchased from photojournalist Ian Kenins. The photographs document small businesses that have been in operation for 30 years or more. The businesses recorded in the project are owner operated and are distinguished by their personal service. Some of the businesses recorded in the project have since closed. The acquisition records an aspect of Australian consumer history that is rapidly disappearing as a result of changing consumer patterns and expectations.

Dolls’ repair shop, Sydney, 1955

The Library’s documentation of Australian social history was furthered by the purchase of a photograph of a dolls’ repair shop in Clarence Street, Sydney in 1955. The vintage print is titled Old Dolls Resprayed and is inscribed on reverse by the photographer, Max Dupain.

Bodenwieser group portrait

The Library’s documentation of Australian dance was enhanced by the purchase of a group photograph of dancers from the Bodenwieser Ballet. The vintage print was taken by Max Dupain in 1941, three years after Gertrud Bodenwieser arrived in Sydney and established the Bodenweiser Ballet. The acquisition complements the Library’s holdings of papers, photographs, costume designs, programs, press cuttings, publicity material, posters, and music scores documenting Bodenwieser’s career in modern dance in Australia.

2. IMAGES DOCUMENTING THE NATURAL AND MAN MADE ENVIRONMENTS

Photographs of Papua New Guinea and Nauru, circa 1930

A collection of 29 photographs of Papua New Guinea and Nauru, circa 1930, was purchased for the collection. The subjects of the photographs include ceremonies and costumes, schools, an open-air trial, housing and an exhibition to promote Australian primary produce in the region.

Photographs of Broome, circa 1900-1930

A collection of 24 photographs of Broome was lent to the Library for copying. The collection includes photographs of streetscapes, the jetty, sailing ships and luggers, Japanese pearlers and pearling activities.

Betts, John. A tour through the British Colonies and Foreign Possessions, 1855

A children’s board game dated 1855 depicting scenes of a tour of British possessions was acquired to enhance the Library’s collection of works documenting popular opinion in Britain of life in the colonies. The board game comprises nine hand-coloured lithographed sheets. Six of the vignette illustrations depict Australia: Western Australia, sheep farming; Adelaide, copper mining; Melbourne, gold fields; Van Dieman's Land or Tasmania, whalers; Sydney, cattle farming; Norfolk Island convicts in a chain-gang (Stop two turns and lament the degraded condition to which sin has reduced some of our fellow men), from where the players proceed to New Zealand, illustrated by Maoris and Britons.

3. PORTRAITS OF AUSTRALIANS OF NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE

Six political cartoons by Geoff Pryor, Patrick Cook and Ward O’Neil were acquired by donation. The subjects of the cartoons include a caricature of Malcolm Fraser and the Fraser cabinet, circa 1980 (Nareen House); fall-out from the Royal Commission into NSW Prisons (Five ministers escape); a prisoner in Long Bay gaol (A Big country) and election pollsters (Would you rather have an early election or not?).

The following individual portraits were also acquired:

VII. Map Acquisitions

The Library is pleased to report that holdings of all currently available Indonesian topographic maps are now complete due to a large acquisition made on Library’s behalf by Oliver Mann, Liaison Officer, Jakarta. Highlights of the other acquisitions in the period under review include:

· The Daily-Mail bird’s-eye map of the British front: sections 1 and 2. London, [c.1916]. Two large coloured bird’s eye view maps of the British front in Europe during the First World War.

· Welt-Karte der mission. Basle, c. 1850. Unusual world map showing the extent of Christian, heathen and Islamic beliefs across the world. Australia falls largely into the heathen category!

VIII. Oral History Acquisitions

The Oral History Section is continuing its program of in-depth interviews with leading Australians. Former prime minister Malcolm Fraser was interviewed by veteran journalist John Farquharson. The interview was recorded before the current outbreak of hostilities in Yugoslavia and it is highly probable that further interview sessions will follow. Eminent dancers Lucette Aldous, Alan Alder and Edmund Stripe were interviewed by Dr. Michelle Potter for the joint National Library-National Film and Sound Archive project Keep dancing! James Rice, an elder from Murray Island and associate of the late Eddie Mabo, was interviewed by June Grainger. Brig. W. B. “Digger” James was interviewed by Terry Colhoun as the first in a series of interviews with leaders of the RSL. Others who have agreed to participate include Sir William Keys and Bruce Ruxton. The project Seven Years On, which is focused on recording interviews with emerged or emerging Aboriginal leaders, continues to make good progress. Led by Australian National University-based scholar Dr. Peter Read and Aboriginal historian Jackie Huggins, the project is now in its fifth year and has recorded fifty-six interviews throughout Australia. The special project Bringing Them Home has begun to produce results and twenty three of the thirty interviews planned for its pilot phase have been received into the Oral History Collection

IX. Asian Collections Acquisitions

The National Library of Australia has strong holdings of microforms on Asia. It has recently acquired a number of additional microfilm titles in Chinese, Japanese and Korean as well as in English. These works are significant for researchers in Asian studies, and complement the existing collections.

Among the items is a microfilm collection of monographs and periodicals on Chinese women. It is a selection of famous works related to women, love, marriage, and family written by renowned Chinese scholars in the Republican period (1911-1949).

Research relating to Christianity in China should also be enhanced by the acquisition of 8 reels of a microfilm collection on the subject. Titles include History of Christianity in China; Christian Missionary Work in China; Chinese Civilization and Christianity; Christianity and Chinese Culture; Jesus Through the Eyes of the Chinese People; Revolution and Religion; History of the Catholic Church in China; and History of Catholic Missionary Work in China.

For those interested in Japanese politics, 90 titles of Japanese leftwing periodicals and 76 titles of Japanese rightwing periodicals have been purchased by the Library. These cover the period 1919-1943 and are valuable additions to existing holdings on these topics.

The Japanese occupation of Taiwan lasted from the late nineteenth century until the end of the Second World War. Newly acquired titles such as Taiwan sotokufu tokeisho (Taiwan statistical abstract) 1897-1942; Kokusei chosa (Taiwan national census) 1895-1945 and Minami shina oyobi nanyo chosasho (South China and Southeast Asia report) 1895-1945 are valuable research materials for this period of history.

Presbyterian mission work in Korea began in 1884 and was complicated by several factors not common to other missions. The presence of the Japanese from 1910 until 1945, for example, did much to undermine the work of the missionaries, especially during the 1930s, and the Korean War caused a period of retrenchment for the Church. The 31 rolls of a microfilm collection of the Board of Foreign Missions: Korea Mission Records, 1903-1957 acquired by the Library includes mission reports, field correspondence, Board of Foreign Missions circular letters, educational and medical work records, and missionary personal correspondence. These records will provide invaluable information on social conditions in Korea and on efforts to spread the gospel during the first half of this century.

The Library has also acquired an important set of microfilmed documents from the Marcos era in the Philippines. The main library of the University of the Philippines had preserved on microfilm its collection of radical documents from the martial law period. These materials were organised and indexed by the library. The National Library of Australia previously held the index to this collection and has now obtained through the Library of Congress the 25 reels of microfilm of the Philippine Radical Papers in the University of the Philippines Diliman Main Library.

X. Overseas Collections Acquisitions

Major research collections in microform also form a major component of the National Library’s general overseas acquisitions. A particularly notable recent purchase is Churchill at War: The Prime Minister’s Office Papers 1940-1945. This unique archival resource illuminates the period of Britain’s darkest days and its greatest triumph, as its inspirational wartime leader, Sir Winston Churchill, succeeded in sustaining British resistance to the German onslaught and supervised the ultimate defeat of Mussolini and Hitler in World War II. The collection, on 330 microfilm reels, encompasses the complete files of Public Record Office classes PREM 3 and PREM 4, including recently released material, some of which was only opened in 1997.

Churchill made it a clear rule that “all directions emanating from me are made in writing.” As a result, this complete record of World War II from Churchill’s perspective offers a unique insight into national and international strategy and military tactics. Particularly notable are the personal minutes and telegrams to Allied and Commonwealth government leaders, such as Australia’s then Prime Minister, Robert Menzies. The collection also includes a record of Menzies meeting with Churchill in 1941, and coverage of the Australian war effort from a British perspective.

Another recent purchase is Nineteenth Century Books on British Colonisation. This collection of rare and unusual material of scholarly value contains over 600 nineteenth-century books and pamphlets republished on microfiche. The texts cover the spectrum of colonial experience, from the reports of colonial administrators in Britain to the personal memoirs of settlers and travellers. It contains a wealth of material on Canada, South Africa, India, the West Indies, Australia and New Zealand as well as British foreign relations relating to the Empire. The collection thus provides a broad comparative perspective that complements the Library’s Australiana subject focus. Approximately 15% of titles in this collection relate to Australia (including a small number of titles that the Library has not previously been able to acquire), with the purchase of Australian titles duplicated in this microfiche collection advancing the cause of preservation by enabling the original books and pamphlets to be shrinkwrapped and withdrawn from day-to-day use.

Other microform acquisitions include:

· United Kingdom Foreign Office files for Japan and the Far East Series 1 and 3

· Japan and America, c1930-1955 : the Pacific War and the occupation of Japan

· Confidential US State Department Central Files. China, 1960-1963

· China through Western eyes: manuscript records of traders, travelers, missionaries and diplomats 1792-1942.

Major purchases in print format include the Collected Works of George Orwell, The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, American National Biography, the Nineteenth-Century Short-Title Catalogue on CD-ROM, and European Americana (a chronological guide to works printed in Europe relating to the Americas, 1493-1750, described as one of the great bibliographical catalogues of this century).

Donations received in this reporting period range from a complete run of Bitch: The Women’s Rock Mag with Bite to three Chinese poetry volumes in English brought in by Dr Nicholas Jose, who was Cultural Counsellor for the Australian Embassy in Beijing from 1987 to 1990. Although small and unassuming, these self-published volumes represent something of the freedom and flowering of culture in China prior to the Tiananmen Square Incident of 1989.

Out-of-print books online

Although the National Library’s overseas acquisition activities are predominantly directed at current material, the Internet is beginning to have an impact on the way out-of-print and antiquarian titles are acquired. In the past the Library used more traditional book-search services to locate copies of titles that are no longer available from their respective publishers, but with the advent of online book-search engines, it is now possible to search across the stock lists of thousands of individual book dealers. Some of these dealers are new to the trade, and operate solely in this environment. An out-of print title published in the United States, for example, was recently hand-delivered to the Library by a previously unknown bookseller (not listed as such in the yellow pages) who operates part-time from his home in suburban Canberra. At the other end of the scale, an order for another comparatively recent but already out-of-print title (the autobiography of a Canadian bush pilot with some connections to Australia) has been placed with a large second-hand bookshop in Vancouver. A number of Australian booksellers are venturing into this new arena, and one of the major online book-search services, Bibliocity, is based in Brisbane. However the task of locating out-of-print Australian titles is nevertheless likely to remain fraught with problems. To make the best use of these new developments, the National Library is creating a desiderata database of titles sought for the collection, and is considering making its “want list” available to the trade through electronic means.

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