Recent Acquisition Highlights

December 2001

Australian printed materials

The National Library has one of the world's richest collections of 18th century imprints relating to Australia and the Pacific. Rare book dealers and antiquarian bookshops offer many publications in this field to the Library. Frequently they are already represented in the Library's collections, but from time to time the Library acquires a new title, or a variant edition of a title already held in its collection. During the period covered by this report the Library purchased several historically significant items, including a French edition of Captain James Cook's Voyages autour du monde entrepris par ordre de S.M. Britannique actuelement regnante, pour faire des decouvertes dans l'hemisphere Austral … published in Amsterdam in 1774, and Jean Pierre Berenger's Raccolta di tutti i viaggi fatti intorno al mondo, Venice, 1794-1796.

One of the most difficult areas of collection building is the detection and purchase of printed materials by Australians or about Australia published elsewhere in the world. Some interesting historical items acquired include: Charles Rowcroft's Bilder aus Australien. Erzahlungen aus den colonien von van-diemensland, 2nd edition, Leipzig, 1853, and Friedrich Justin Bertuch's Bilderbuch fur Kinder enthaltend eine angenehme Sammlung von Tieren, Pflanzen, Blumen, Fruchten … Weimar, 1798-1830, which contains the earliest published description, illustration and classification of the platypus. Modern publications relating to Australia but published abroad are equally difficult to locate, and often require a degree of language expertise to identify. The Library has recently investigated Australian works published in Poland and discovered a surprisingly large number that it has since obtained for the collection.

Extensive runs of Australian serials are a feature of the National Library's collection, but not all of its runs are complete. The recent publicity about the Library's collections for the 100th birthday BookSearch gave the Library the chance to highlight periodical titles missing from its collection, and titles where there were gaps in its holdings. Copies of Adelaide Punch (1878-1882), a complete run of the Scotch Collegian, and missing issues of such titles as Australian good taste, Village voice, Shares review, Rats review (Tasmanian Rats of Tobruk), Australian Radio and Television News, and the Asian-Australia Programme of the German Shortwave Station (1939 issues) were just some of the gifts and acquisitions contributing to a more complete collection of Australian serials.

The Library collects ephemeral materials (posters, leaflets, handbills, menus, catalogues, advertising material, and objects) very selectively to document and illustrate daily life in Australia. In time, these materials become valuable research materials depicting a bygone era and are much in demand for exhibitions. Among the variety of material recently acquired, the following illustrate the range of the collection: fashion brochures from Melbourne and Sydney fashion houses between 1916 and 1923, items relating to the 1956 Olympic Games, and a collection of memorabilia and documentation from the Shannons 2001 National Motoring Tour. Menus were also featured in the Library's BookSearch publicity in The Australian and National Library of Australia News. There was an enthusiastic public response to this article, and as a result the Library has acquired a range of shipping, airline, train, restaurant, special event and official banquet menus from the turn of the century to the present.

The Library is also responsible for archiving and making available Australian online electronic publications. One of the most important achievements in this area has been the successful archiving followed by negotiations for the public display of the SOCOG site. This was launched in late September, accompanied by a media release.

Back to the top

Asian Collections

An important priority for the Asian Collections Branch is the acquisition of material about Australia published in Asia. Indonesia, our nearest Asian neighbour, has extensive links with Australia. Recent examples of publications include : Indonesia and Australia ; bilateral relations into the 21st century. Jakarta, Centre for Strategic and International Studies and the Australian National University, 2001 and Analysis of the Abdurrahman Wahid government's foreign relations (including with Australia and Singapore) Jakarta, 2001. Indonesia and its relationship to Australia has been a complex one as shown by another new title, East Timor : the long and winding road Jakarta, Aliansi Jurnalis Independen, 2001. Another nearby area where the Library tries hard to obtain library materials is the Indonesian province of Irian Jaya (the western half of the island of New Guinea, called by pro-Independence groups West Papua). Draft agenda 21 Irian Jaya : strategi daerah untuk pembangunan berkelanjutan (On the prospects for the development of Irian Jaya) Jayapura, 2000 is a recent acquisition.

From other Asian neighbours, the Library has acquired Hellfire Pass Memorial : Thai-Burma railway (remembering the Australian POWs who worked on the infamous project) Bangkok, Australia-Thai Chamber of Commerce, 1998 and Osutoraria, Aborijini no bijutsu = The Australian Aboriginal art exhibition (held in several Japanese cities during 2001) Tokyo, Yomiuri Shinbunsha, 2001. In response to a perception that the Library was not receiving an adequate supply of current library material from Brunei, Oliver Mann, the Library's Regional Officer in Jakarta made an acquisitions field trip to Brunei in September and collected a wide range of publications as well as setting up some sources of future supply.

Historical works are an important part of the Library's collection development policy and recent significant acquisitions include: Zhongguo gong chan dang ba shi nian zhen gui dang an (Archives from the 80-year history of the Chinese Communist Party) Beijing, 2001; Survey of Korean culture. 10 vols. Seoul, 2001; Prawattisat Lao, 1779-1975 (History of Laos) Krung Thep, 2000; Democracy in Cambodia : a survey of the Cambodian electorate. Phnom Penh, Center for Advanced Study and Asia Foundation, 2001 and Burma's lost kingdoms : splendours of Arakan Bangkok, 2001, by the noted Australian academic, Dr Pamela Gutman of Sydney. The acquisition of a set of Annual reports of the Straits Settlements, 1855-1941 adds to the research value of the Library's collections on this part of the world.

Back to the top

Manuscripts and personal papers

Recent acquisitions include two letters from Lord Mountbatten to Freda Dudley-Ward written during the 1920 visit of the Prince of Wales to Australia and New Zealand. The letters discuss his 'Diary of the Tour', which was later published. Included are descriptions of the sea voyages in the Renown and the strenuous tours of Sydney and Melbourne.

The personal papers of prominent Australians form the strength of the Library's manuscript collections. Among those acquired during the last six months were the papers of:

  • Politicians and public servants: Meredith Edwards and Allan Griffith (public servants), Franca Arena (politician), and Sir Arthur Tange, (public servant and diplomat).
  • Academics and historians: Kenneth Orr, (educationist), Allan Martin, (biographer and historian), Harold Oliver, (Shakespeare scholar) and Alan Holgate, (engineering historian).
  • Creators and performers: Peter O'Shaughnessy, Thomas Keneally, Peter Carey, Arthur Upfield, Bob Ellis and Carmel Bird (writers), Anthony Lawrence (poet), Rex Reid and Shirley McKechnie (dancers), John Bell and Frank Gerald (actors), Carl Vine (composer) and Dame Nellie Melba (opera singer).
  • Scientists and conservationists: Ragbir Bhathal and Arthur Groom; (astronomers) David Malin and Doreen Langley (medical researcher).
  • Papers relating to the Pacific Region: Harold Thomson (Anglican missionary in the Pacific) and Robert Cole (New Guinea patrol officer).
  • Papers relating to multicultural affairs: Josephine Zammit and Michael Cigler (sociologists) and John Cole (Malta's Minister for Immigration and later Australian immigrant).
  • Other personal papers: Sir Ian Potter (businessman) and Ian Temby, QC.

Records of organisations acquired included: the Australian Federation of Women Voters, the Australian Information Management Association and further records of the Polish Historical Institute in Australia, the Australian Union of Students and the Greenmill Dance Project.

Back to the top

Maps

Eighteenth century map acquisitions included the Itineris tertia dierum dies II. Id est: Philosophiae pars Iia, son disputations …[1740] a manuscript dissertation on astronomy; Eberhard August Wilhelm von Zimmermann's Tabula mundi geographico zoologica fistens quadrupedes hucusque notos fedibus fuis adfcriptos… Augsburg, 1775?, a world map showing the distribution of mammals; and James Ferguson's A map of the earth upon which are marked the hours and minutes of true times of the entrance and exit of Venus in its passage over the sun's disc, June 6th. London, J. Ferguson, 1765?, which is a map showing the lines of and areas covered by the transit of Venus.

Australian maps of the nineteenth century feature prominently among the acquisitions of the last six months. Among the items are William Owen's W. Owen's atlas maps of N. South Wales, Queensland, New Zealand, Victoria & South Australia, Melbourne, W. Owen, 1866-69, a previously unknown and unrecorded set of squatting run maps of south-east Australia and New Zealand. J.J. Blundell's The squatter's directory and key to Ham's squatting map, Melbourne, J.J. Blundell & Co., 1860 is a very rare edition of the revision of Ham's earlier squatting run map of Victoria first issued in 1853. David Tulloch and James Davie Brown's Map of the colony of Victoria, Melbourne, Tulloch and Brown, 1857 is a rare, early map of Victoria showing goldfields, roads, etc. and is a new edition of the 1856 issue. John Helder Wedge's Map of Port Phillip, from the survey of Mr Wedge and others, Sydney, R. Clint, 1836 is the first published map of Melbourne with ms. annotations by the Headlam family, pastoral pioneers of Tasmania and Victoria. Thomas Ham's Map of new South Wales shewing at a glance the recent inland tour of Doctor Leichardt from Moreton Bay to Port Essington, Melbourne, Port Phillip Herald, 1846 is an extremely rare map showing Leichhardt's route and details of the land discovered.

Back to the top

Music

Two interesting items acquired are: Carry on Australia : march song / words & melody by Ernest A. Cook. Paterson, NSW, Australian Publishing Service, c. 1933 and Australia's anti-fascist marching song music arranged for the Australia-Soviet Friendship League by Margaret Sutherland and published in Melbourne by the Australia-Soviet Friendship League.

Back to the top

Oral history

Outstanding additions to the Library's Oral History Collection included interviews with Nobel Prize winner Professor Peter Doherty, mathematician Prof. Bernard Neumann, sociologist Prof. George Smolicz, physicist Prof. Peter Hannaford, acclaimed poet Peter Porter, former political leaders Janine Haines and Sir Joh Bjelke Petersen, popular entertainers Peter Garrett and Simon Gallaher, eminent lawyers Chester Porter QC and Frank Mc Alary, QC, military and community leader Major-General Alan Stretton, former ACTU national secretary Bill Kelty, mining executive Hugh Morgan, Aboriginal leader Patrick Dodson, folklorist Alex Hood and composer Felix Werder.

Back to the top

Pictorial materials

Photograph collections acquired by the Library include one of 250 photographs by Wolfgang Sievers depicting Australian mining from 1950 to 1980. The collection comprises archivally processed vintage prints and is the photographer's selection of major photographs taken on commission for a range of Australian mining companies. Seven photographs from Max Dupain's Sydney series were acquired to enhance the visual record of life in Sydney in the 1940s.

Among the original art works and prints acquired were:

  • Portraits of the explorers John King and Charles Gray, ca. 1865.
  • Twelve works on paper by George French Angas depicting various topographical images from the South Australian Great Northern Exploring Expedition of 1859-64. The prints record with clarity and detail the scenes along the route of the exploration party.
  • A watercolour by Ida Rentoul Outhwaite, titled Cocktails in the bush, painted between 1917-1937. The work combines fairies with Australian animals and comments on 'early closing' of hotels and was acquired to document aspects of social drinking through the unlikely medium of a children's book illustration.
  • Sketchbooks of properties in the Longford region of Tasmania by John Richardson Glover. The 15 drawings record in detail the design and architectural features of buildings, such as a steam mill and Episcopalian church. Glover was the son of the more famous artist John Glover.
  • The history of prince Lee Boo a native of the Pelew Islands, London, William Darnton, 1822. A children's jigsaw puzzle showing a simplified version of the life of Lee Boo, son of a chief of the Palau Islands who returned to Britain with Captain Henry Wilson in 1784.

Back to the top