This report to Council offers a review of recent major acquisitions of significance and trends in collection development activity in the National Library. It covers the period from June 2004 to November 2004. It does not describe the large volume of acquisitions of both Australian and overseas materials that are routinely acquired through deposit, purchase or donation to build the collections. During the financial year 2004-2005 it is estimated that the Library will acquire over 380,000 collection items in a wide range of formats.
The Library’s collection of early books and maps relating to Pacific exploration and the discovery and settlement of Australia is exceptionally strong. However, from time to time new collections or individual items come onto the market that fill gaps in the collection or provide the opportunity to collect variant editions of important works. The Rodney Davidson collection of pre-19 th century material relating to Australia and Pacific exploration was auctioned in Melbourne on 7 March. The Davidson Collection is regarded as one of the last great collections of its type and one of the most significant ever to be offered for sale in Australia. The Library was successful with fifteen out of eighteen bids placed, at a total cost of $376,458 (excluding GST). Of the material being offered at auction, the Library already held 90%, including four major works which were estimated to sell for up to $500,000 each. This indicates the strength of the Library’s collections in early Australiana. Three of the works acquired have no other recorded holdings in Australia and two of the four variant editions purchased are the only known copies in existence. The items acquired by the Library were:
Other acquisitions of early Australian titles or editions not previously held by the Library include:
The National Library collects posters as part of the Australian documentary heritage.
The Library’s Digital Archiving Section seeks out and archives significant Australian websites and other electronic documents as a way of preserving this aspect of Australia ’s published heritage material. The following examples of items recently archived show the diversity of the material being collected and preserved.
Works acquired by Asian Collections in the period illustrate the range of items normally added to the collection: contemporary politics in Thailand , Islam in Indonesia , rare Japanese maps and historical resources on Korea . This year the Library was again pleased to receive a large donation of current Chinese books (selected by our subject specialists) from the Chinese government.
The provision of access to electronic resources continues to be a priority. During the last six months, the following resources have been made available:
Microform collections acquired or added to during this period include:
Although the Library no longer has an active rare book acquisition program, material for the collection is still acquired, either through purchase or donation, where it augments existing collections and when resources permit. Titles acquired for the Rare Books Collection in this period include:
The painter Nora Heysen bequeathed her papers to the Library, where they will complement the papers of her father, Sir Hans Heysen. The archive is rich in family correspondence, as well as photographs, slides, cuttings and art catalogues.
Additions to literary collections have included correspondence of the novelist Murray Bail and papers of the poet Chris Mansell, the prison writer Max Williams and the children’s writer Joan Phipson. The Bail correspondence is quite extraordinary, with letters from many of Australia’s most famous writers of the last 40 years and also several overseas writers. Dr Jean Battersby has donated the first instalment of her papers, documenting her work as Chief Executive Director of the Australian Council for the Arts and the Australia Council between 1968 and 1982. It will be a fine source on arts policy and the promotion of the arts both in Australia and overseas.
The Library’s holdings of papers of scientists are limited, but there have recently been a few notable additions. A large collection of papers of E. Gordon Hallsworth have been presented by his wife. They record his work as an agricultural scientist, as Head of the CSIRO Division of Soils, and as Project Director of the International Federation of Institutes of Advanced Study. Geoffrey Loftus-Hills was also an agricultural scientist and his papers deal with his career in the CSIRO Division of Dairy Research as well as his later activities in the Australian Democrats and the peace movement. The Melbourne zoologist Sam Lake has presented the first instalment of his papers, relating in particular to his involvement in the Lake Pedder campaign and other conservation campaigns in Tasmania .
Other acquisitions highlight the variety of personal archives held in the Library. Brigadier Geoffrey Solomon was a lifelong diarist and shortly before his death he passed over 58 volumes, extending from 1944 to 2001. The detailed entries will provide a remarkable resource for social and military historians. Jean Lester worked at Yarralumla as the personal assistant to the wives of several Governors-General and her collection of invitations, programs, speeches and photographs give an interesting picture of vice-regal life and travels. Ted Flowers, the Librarian at the University of Newcastle from 1961 to 1988, has donated papers dealing with his career and many of the major changes in the library profession in that period. The papers of Frank Gare, the husband of the novelist Nene Gare, deal in particular with his work as Director of Native Welfare in Western Australia. Hugh Gilchrist has presented further files assembled while writing his monumental study Australians and Greeks. Another instalment has been received of papers of the barrister Bryan Keon-Cohen, QC recording major cases on land rights like the Wik and Yorta Yorta cases, as well as his early career in lecturing and writing on legal history.
While the Library has often sought the papers of expatriates in Britain and Europe , it has only occasionally received papers of Australians who lived for long periods in Asia . Jean Walters married Lieutenant Julius Tahija in 1946 and they lived in Indonesia for over fifty years. Near the end of her life, she wrote an autobiography An Unconventional Woman. With the help of Oliver Mann, the Library’s representative in Jakarta , her children assembled and presented an interesting collection of correspondence, photographs and drafts of the book.
While most of the acquisitions have been of modern papers, the Library has acquired a few items dating from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Thomas Suckling was a lieutenant serving on the British gunboat Renard on the Australian Station in 1874. A volume of his letters, written to his fiancée from Fiji, shortly before it was annexed, was bought from a London dealer. Another traveller was Ferdinand Karoly who came to Australia in 1905-06 as the sales representative of a Leipzig firm. His diary, written in German, records his impressions of all the capital cities. Another diary was kept by the actress Rose Quong, who left Melbourne in 1924 and later achieved some fame on the London stage. George Montefiore was a Sydney merchant and his letterbooks contain both personal and business letters in the period 1881-86. Finally, the Library has purchased at auction several books of the ornithologist Gregory Mathews, written between 1912 and 1947 and heavily annotated by the author. They are useful additions to the splendid Mathews Collection.
There have been only a few transfers of organisational archives. The most notable was the archives of the Children’s Book Council of Australia. Dating from 1946 to 2004, they include correspondence, minutes, reports, papers relating to awards, photographs, memorabilia and artwork. The Council arranged for a team of 30 volunteers to cull duplicates and organise the archives.
The last six months have seen some outstanding cartographic items added to the collection. The most significant is a pair of early eighteenth century globes produced by the British globemaker, Richard Cushee, which were published 1731. The terrestrial globe depicts a speculative east coast of Australia, anticipated nearly forty years before Cook’s Endeavour voyage and survey along the coastline. The globes are accompanied by a treatise by the noted British globemaker, John Harris: The description and use of the globes and the orrery. To which is prefix’d by way of introduction, a brief account of the solar system, published by Cushee in 1740. The globes emphasise the intense competition between the French and British up to Cook’s voyages of exploration. On a much smaller scale a Dutch double hemispherical world map by the minor cartographer Jan de Lat, De wareld in een ronde gedaante van de noord pool te zien … showing a hypothetical east coast, was also added to the collection.
Another significant item is a manuscript map of Australia compiled by the noted French cartographer, Charles Francois Beautemp-Beaupre showing the state of knowledge of the area and the new discoveries at the time of the D’Entrecasteaux voyage. Additional pencilling of the route of the Baudin voyage to Tasmania has been added in by an unknown hand.
An interesting and unusual educational jigsaw puzzle was acquired for the collection. Published in Paris in 1841, Geographie comprises six jigsaw puzzles, each puzzle representing major continents or regions of the world. Descriptive text and engraved vignettes accompany the puzzles.
Dancker Danckerts’ rare and only recently recorded world map, published in 1658, was also acquired. Titled Orbis terrarium typus de integro in plurimis emendatus auctus et icunculis illustratus, the map was issued in a Dutch Bible published in 1660. The central part of the map has been obtained from an earlier plate which has been amended to show Tasman’s voyages.
Amongst the significant Australian maps acquired was the relatively rare Map shewing the alienation and present occupation of lands in the colony of Victoria issued by the Victorian Department of Crown Lands and Survey in 1875. Issued on 16 sheets the maps include references to land sold, leased or licensed as well as state forests and timber reserves.
The papers, sheet music and sound recordings relating to the internationally celebrated Australian accompanist Geoffrey Parsons were donated by his brother Frank Parsons, who has systematically organised and described the collection. Frank also spent several days at the Library helping to describe the archival sound recordings which document Parsons’ career spent mainly in London accompanying many of the great singers from the mid-late 20th century such as Dame Janet Baker, Jessye Norman, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Barbara Bonney, Thomas Allen and Yvonne Kenny.
Following on from the acquisition of the papers of Peter Sculthorpe and James Penberthy, the Library has purchased the papers, manuscripts and printed music of another composer of the same generation, Richard Meale. As a composer, pianist, lecture, broadcaster and conductor, Richard Meale played a crucial part in the propagation of avant-garde music in Australia from the 1960s, from his early days working with the ABC in Sydney through his years spent as Reader in Composition at the University of Adelaide. He is perhaps best known to the public through his opera Voss, with libretto by Patrick White, and through his many commissions for the major orchestras and professional ensembles in Australia .
Max Lambert, composer, arranger and musical director, was interviewed for the Oral History collection. During his visit he donated the musical manuscripts and recordings for the 2000 Sydney Olympics opening and closing ceremonies, for which he was the musical director. Rob Linn interviewed John Schumann, the Adelaide-based former lead singer of the rock group Redgum for the Oral History collection.
A substantial addition to the collection of composer and performer Keith Humble was donated by his widow, Jill. This comprised a major collection of archival sound recordings documenting the history of contemporary classical music performance in Australia from the 1960s to the 90s. This archival collection will be used in forthcoming ABC radio programs on the music collections, together with oral history interviews from the period.
Amongst a wide range of historically interesting sheet music acquisitions acquired through the antiquarian market was Wonder Boy Charlton, a song about the world record breaker swimmer Andrew “Boy” Charlton, composed by Reg M Thompson and published in Sydney by the Manly Daily in 1924. This, like other recent pre-1930 sheet music acquisitions, has been digitised on acquisition.
Dance material was acquired across the range of the Library’s special collecting areas and in both contemporary dance and ballet. Several items will feed into the Ballets Russes project being undertaken by the Library with the Australian Ballet. They include oral history interviews with Valrene Tweedie and Anna Volkova, both formerly dancers with the Ballets Russes companies, a collection of photographs from Valrene Tweedie of her colleagues in the Ballets Russes, and paintings and costumes designs purchased from Tamara Finch. Interviews were also recorded with Eleanor Brickhill, a leading contemporary dancer-choreographer and Ted Brandsen, formerly Director of the West Australian Ballet and currently Director of the Dutch National Ballet
The acquisition of the papers of Ross Stretton, former artistic director of the Australian Ballet and the Royal Ballet, Covent Garden , was finalised. Another manuscript collection was acquired from Hanny Exiner, former dancer with the Bodenwieser ballet and an early practitioner in Australia of dance therapy.
During the period under review, a diverse range of distinguished Australians were interviewed for the Oral History Collection in locations ranging from Alice Springs to Amsterdam . The diversity of the materials, and their research potential, is exemplified in two interviews recorded in the fields of politics and government. The first of these is a lengthy interview recorded in Perth with Sir William Heseltine, former long-serving Private Secretary to the Queen. The second is an interview recorded in Alice Springs with the Administrator of the Northern Territory , and sometime folksinger, Ted Egan.
In the arts, the literary scholar and administrator Professor Ian Donaldson was interviewed by Professor Bruce Bennett; the writer and critic Helen Garner, was interviewed by Sara Dowse; the playwright Alan Hopgood was interviewed by Bill Stephens. In the field of historical studies, Professor Jill Roe was interviewed by Dr Susan Marsden and Dr Patricia Clarke was interviewed by Dr Ann Moyal.
The most prolific interviewer during the period was the science writer and broadcaster Dr Peter Pockley, who recorded five interviews with eminent Australian scientists. His interviewees included gastroenterologist Professor Barry Marshall, molecular virologist Dr Graeme Laver, microbiologist, virologist and immunologist Professor Gordon Ada, medical scientist and physiologist Professor Robert Porter and immunologist Professor Robert Blanden.
Other interviews were recorded with the early childhood development specialist Professor Freda Briggs; barrister and former Commonwealth Attorney-General, the Hon. R.J. Ellicott; and with expatriate anthropologist and former Harold White Fellow Roslyn Poignant. Dr. Peter Read and Jackie Huggins recorded interviews with university lecturer Malcolm Lane and youth workers Layla Yu and Natalie Davey for their ongoing Indigenous leadership project Seven Years On.
The Folklore Collection was strengthened by materials received from field collectors working in NSW, Victoria , Queensland and the ACT. Rob and Olya Willis recorded material from nurses, farmers, former paddlewheeler operators, singer-songwriters, bush workers and a quilt-maker. In March, they spent several days in the Library's Recording Studio, recording the songs, poetry and music of three Indigenous Tasmanian performers: Ronnie Summers, Dianne Summers and Melinda Sainty. The Willis Collection now totals 776 recorded hours and is the largest collection of its type in the Library.
In Queensland , the Townsville-based musicologist Dr. Karl Neuenfeldt commenced his latest project Sweet Sounds of a Sugar Town. The first recordings arrived in February. Described as “soundscapes of sunrises, sunsets and sounds in between”, they include the sounds from the Bundaberg region of sugar cane burning, sugar mills working, railway trucks in motion as well as songs.
Former Harold White Fellow Keith McKenry completed his series of interviews People who knew John Meredith. Recorded to assist with his biography of Meredith, these interviews are very well-researched and comprehensive and will benefit other researchers.
Important acquisitions during the period were a drawing by Conrad Martens of the artist’s home in St Leonards, NSW purchased from a Sydney dealer and a collection of five pen and ink sketches of Brisbane, Moreton Bay and towns in Northern New South Wales, all circa 1860, acquired by donation. The sketches are unsigned but are the work of a competent sketcher, who has included good topographic detail. The acquisition helps fill a gap in views of this period of northern New South Wales and Queensland.
The Cultural Gifts Program continues to be an avenue for welcome donations of cartoons. Three donations were received in March: 251 cartoons by Arthur Horner, 218 by Ward O’Neill and 277 by Alan Moir.
The subject matter covered in Pictures photographic acquisitions is, as always, highly varied. As a sample, topics of recent photographic acquisitions have included roadside memorials; the Abrolhos Islands off the Western Australian coast; life on ‘The Block’ in the inner Sydney suburb of Redfern; the 1936 wedding of the year when Australian actor Cyril Ritchard married actress Madge Elliott at St Mary’s Cathedral; Alfred Hitchcock entwined with a koala; observance of a Rains Retreat at the Thai Buddhist Temple at Box Hill, and the visit to Australia of Crown Princess Mary of Denmark.
| About This Site | Copyright | Privacy | Accessibility | Site Map | Site Search | Content A-Z | Contact Us |