This report offers a review of recent significant acquisitions by the National Library and collecting activities. It does not describe the large volume of acquisitions of both Australian and overseas materials that are routinely acquired through deposit, purchase or donation.
A significant acquisition during this period was the 1796 theatre playbill received by the National Library as a gift from the Government of Canada.
For the benefit of J. Butler and W. Bryant: at the Theatre, Sydney on July 30, 1796 will be performed Jane Shore …after the play The Wapping landlady … to which will be added The miraculous cure. The playbill was printed in Sydney by George Hughes, operator of Australia’s first printing press, which came out on the First Fleet. It advertises a theatrical performance held at the Theatre, Sydney, on Saturday, 30 July. The verso of the playbill has been annotated and signed PG King. The handwritten note is addressed to George Chalmers Esq., and lists two other plays performed earlier in Sydney and Norfolk Island. It is probable that Philip Gidley King took the playbill with him when he visited England in October 1796. King was a First Fleet Marine Officer and, later, 3rd Governor of the colony of NSW from 1800–1806.
A major collecting priority for the National Library is literature on the European exploration and settlement of Australia. During the reporting period a number of important items were acquired at auction.
Clarke, Cuthbert Charles. Illustrations to the diaries of Burke & Wills Expedition to Carpentaria. [Melbourne]: De Gruchy & Leigh, [ca. 1862]. These very rare captioned lithographs illustrate the progress of the expedition to Carpentaria. The unsigned plates are the work of Cuthbert Charles Clarke also known as Clarke Ismer.
O’Donnell, W.J. Diary of the exploring expedition / led by W.J. O'Donnell, on behalf of the Cambridge Downs Pastoral Association. Melbourne : Mason, Firth & M'Cutcheon, Printers, 1884. The expedition examined the land around Cambridge Gulf on the north-west coast and was funded by the speculative pastoral company Cambridge Downs Pastoral Association.
Stuart, John McDouall, 1815-1866. Stuart's journey into the interior of Australia. Adelaide : J.H. Lewis, Printer and Publisher ; Melbourne : G. Robertson, [1860].
G. F. P. Gold pen and pencil sketches, or, The adventures of Mr. John Slasher at the Turon diggings; With illustrations by T. Balcombe. Sydney : W. Moffitt, 1852. This was the first and only edition of satirical sketches of the early New South Wales goldfields following the first discovery of gold at Ophir.
Commercial album of Victoria : comprising portraits of some of the Colony’s most prominent commercial men, past and present : views of a few of the principal business premises, commercial institutions and princely residences of the Queen City of the South. Melbourne : J. Gale Pottenger, [189-].
Australian documentary heritage is also represented by more ephemeral and insubstantial material. Two of the items acquired at auction represent the diversity of early Australian ephemera which is sought put for the collection:
Theatre Royal, Melbourne…this evening, February 21st, at the Theatre in Bourke Street… The widow’s victim!!! [and] The lottery ticket…under the immediate direction of Mr Buckingham. Melbourne, 1842. This broadside, which is printed on silk, is the earliest known playbill from the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.
Wooragee Gold Mining & Dredging Coy. To Charles William White, Esq, manager of the London Bank Australian Limited, Swanston Street Branch, Melbourne, by the Shareholders of the Wooragee Gold Mining & Dredging Coy no Liability in recognition of his assistance & advice during the formation of the Coy & the kindness to us on all occasions. Melbourne, ca 1890s. This large silk tapestry features presentation text and signatures of the seven Chinese directors of Wooragee embroidered in gold thread, above a decoration featuring peacocks on a red background. It is an acknowledgement of the relationship between prosperous Chinese members of the community and their European banker.
Posters are collected as part of the Australian documentary heritage. Several advertising and travel posters from the 1940s to the 1960s were acquired by the Library and include the work of iconic artists such as Eileen Mayo, Walter Jardine, Harry Kelly and Percy Trompf: Beat inflation troubles: fit new Goodyear heavy duty tubes. (ca. 1950s); Every real boy wants Stamina: keep him healthy in Stamina Knickers, pre-tailored from Stamina cloth. (ca. 1950s); Cool off in Tasmania: avge. Temperature in the hottest month 62.3°. (ca. 1930); J. C. Hutton’s celebrated pineapple brand, hams & bacon (ca. 1910); Always wait for the green light! (ca. 1930s); and Make sure you have a current broadcast listener’s licence: don’t risk prosecution, obtain your licence at the Post Office – annual fee now £2-15-0. (1957)
The Library acquired thirteen performing arts broadsides from a collection of early Australian entertainment posters discovered in a warehouse in Sydney. The acquisition has greatly enhanced the Library’s collection of early performing arts material. Most of the posters advertise acts and shows which visited Australia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and include Carter the Great: do the dead materialize: the absorbing question of all time: modern priestess of Delphi your mind is an open book to her (ca 1920s), and The only Chung Ling Soo: marvellous Chinese conjuror (between 1909 and 1918).
Two members of staff attended the National Young Writer's Festival in October to promote awareness of legal deposit and to highlight the Library’s interest in collecting ‘fringe’ publications, new writing and zines. A number of good contacts were made and representative works were acquired for the collection.
The Library collects material produced in conjunction with federal elections to build a permanent record of this aspect of Australian political history. Letters have been sent to all candidates standing in the 2007 election to request copies of any, policy speeches, letters and reports to constituents, leaflets, advertising material, and related material for the Library’s collection.
In the online arena, work is well underway to build a broad collection of web material relating to the 2007 federal election campaign. Six ‘2007 Australian federal election campaign’ collections have been set up in the PANDORA web archive to group collected content, for example, political parties, lobby groups, media and comment. As well as collecting major party and candidate websites, considerable effort is being put into collecting video content from the web, including the Australia Votes 2007 Election Channel by Google which has YouTube videos from all major parties, the Kevin07 and LaborTV websites, and independently produced satirical campaign videos.
The Library, in association with the Internet Archive, has undertaken a third harvest of the Australian web domain. The 2007 whole domain harvest ran for four weeks and collected 516,064,820 unique documents (files) amounting to over 18 terabytes of data. This content includes a broad coverage of websites on the .au web domain as well as content not on the .au domain that was able to be automatically identified using GeoIP lookup functions as being hosted on an Australian web server.
A significant collection of 104 letters relating to novelist Christina Stead was received. The letters – between Stead, her husband Bill Blake, the American literary academic and critic Harry Bloom and his wife Anne – reveal the complex relationships between the four. While the Library held copies of a small number of the letters, the rest were previously unknown to scholarship. The family of Russell Braddon also donated a remarkable and moving set of letters written by Braddon to his family during his imprisonment as a prisoner of war at Changi.
The Library’s already superb holdings of Donald Friend manuscripts were enhanced with the acquisition of correspondence between Friend and Attilio Guarracino; several previously unknown Friend notebooks containing original drawings; a mock-up for the Farce of Sodom; and Friend’s guestbook for his Bali home, detailing many famous and less famous literary, artistic and cultural visitors.
The second and final instalment of papers of Sir Littleton Groom completes the collection of a significant Australian political figure of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The first instalment was received by the Library in 1937, making it one of the Library’s earliest acquisitions of political papers, and setting a record for the length of time between instalments of personal papers. The series of correspondence between Sir Littleton Groom and his wife, Jessica - covering 43 years and held by the Groom family in the family laundry for decades - is truly remarkable. Groom began each and every letter to her “My Darling Jess”.
An important addition to the papers of Sir Robert Cotton - former Federal Vice-President and State President of the Liberal Party, and Federal Minister for Civil Aviation - included black and white and colour photographs, travel journals kept by Cotton over his lifetime, records of Cotton’s consular duties in New York (including formal dinner seating plans that may reveal many subtle relationships), transcripts of oral history and television documentaries, correspondence, speeches, and objects relating to his political career.
The Library has a long-standing tradition of collecting papers from distinguished Australian academics in all fields – especially if their home institutions do not support an archival program. During this period, the Library received the papers of Professor Alan Frost, a leading Australian historian and international authority on Australian colonial history. The papers of James MacGregor Dickins, a geologist and palaeontologist with an international reputation in Permian global biostratigraphy, who was also a founding member of the Geological Society of Australia and a member of the Australian Pugwash Committee (formed to focus on the implications of the proliferation of nuclear weapons), were donated to the Library by his widow. Professor John Legge presented his papers on his work on Indonesia, including correspondence and his Indonesian diaries and files relating to the Asian Studies Association of Australia.
The records of Australia on the Map 1606-2006, an organisation dedicated to helping communities plan events to celebrate 400 years of mapping Australian coastlines, were transferred to the Library. These included correspondence, minutes, files, digital records, and ephemera and records relating to 2006 voyage of the Duyfken replica and other commemorative events.
The period was characterised by the addition of several items of interest to Australian exploration, and a larger number of ephemeral but important items pertaining to Australian property history and mapping.
In July the Library acquired four important maps detailing the Burke & Wills and other expeditions, sold at auction as part of the Davidson Collection (Third Sale). Three of the four have a direct relationship with the Burke & Wills expedition. Two are based on Wills’ original materials left with Brahe before Burke’s disastrous decision to dash for the Gulf, and one of these is a previously unrecorded tracing. The other is an unrecorded map on three sheets by A W Howitt showing the route of his rescue expedition in a limited run lithograph. Howitt rescued King, and collected the remains of Burke and Wills for burial in Melbourne. The fourth map is of McDouall Stuart's 1860 expedition.
Two early British hydrographic charts of South Australian coast were acquired, filling an important gap in the Library’s holdings. This coast was not previously well charted and the two charts represent some of the earliest examples of the Admiralty’s first detailed survey. They comprise Cape Jervis to Guichen Bay charted 1870-71, and St. Vincent and Spencer Gulfs, surveyed 1863-73. An 1891 South Australian map acquisition, produced by the Engineer-in-Chief’s Office clearly indicates developments in the interior, including stock routes and plans showing proposed additional water supplies.
Significant additions to the Library’s extensive collection of sales plans were received during this period. The plans describe terms and conditions of sale, terms and provide unique descriptive information for many early regional and urban subdivisions. A small collection of Victorian suburban sales plans obtained at Australian Book Auctions (Berry Collection), added to the holdings for that state. A somewhat larger group of auction and sales plans was received for Newcastle allotments advertised between 1906 and 1941. Many include details of block prices and terms, local transport and commercial outlets, and locations of prominent buildings. A collection of 150 sales plans for the NSW south coast was also received though a solicitor’s office in Wollongong. Completing sales plans acquisitions is a remarkable hand drawn and painted plan for the township of Bungendore. The plan shows the town’s first subdivision, for sale by auction at Bungendore on Friday October 17th, 1884. The plan is highly colourful, and at 3.93 x 2.64 metres, one of the largest items in the Map collection.
A “bird’s eye view” of the proposed general wharfage scheme west of Dawes Point published by the Sydney Harbour Trust in 1912 was acquired. The coloured print includes views of the Sydney wharf district including Darling Harbour, Blackwattle Bay, White Bay and Johnston’s Bay between Dawes Point and Rozelle Bay.
Four ‘escape maps’ published by the British War Office were also acquired. The maps are silk or rayon in good condition. They are printed on both sides and relate to zones contested in 1944, including China, Burma, Siam (Thailand), French Indo China (Vietnam), Sumatra, Java and Borneo.
The Library’s Dame Nellie Melba collections continue to grow. Two scrapbooks assembled between 1924 and 1932 bring together a brilliant composite picture of society and music of the period, especially all manner of press about opera in Australia, including much coverage of Melba’s farewells and death. The development of the national operatic enterprise, social aspiration, couture and gossip are all included, as is the advent of the wireless broadcast and the extensive theatre closures that occurred in its wake.
Richard Bonynge and Joan Sutherland sent a new instalment of their collection from Switzerland, consisting of over 200 reels of archival sound, film and video recordings of operas, concerts and interviews that document their musical careers from 1949 onwards. Collecting this audio-visual material was a priority because of the preservation risks to documentation held on analogue tapes.
The Library’s manuscript collections of Australia’s leading composers whose works date back to the 1960s continued to grow with the sixth instalment of the papers (and a large number of archival performance recordings) of Larry Sitsky and some additions to the papers of Malcolm Williamson.
Some fascinating heritage Australian sheet music has been acquired through auction and e-bay, including a Silver Songster, a Victoria Polka composed in honour of the Paris exhibition, an item honouring the return of the NSW contingent from the Sudan in 1885, a World War One comic song, and an 1897 jubilee cricket song.
Richard Divall donated the first of his born-digital music editions of historic Australian music, created using music notation software. These will allow the Library to trial how to catalogue, store and provide access to digital music file formats.
The Library’s documentation of the Ballets Russes in Australia was strengthened by the donation of a set of diaries by musician Shirley Baker. Baker recorded in detail her impressions of the Australian performances of the Ballets Russes and their effect on her developing appreciation of ballet.
The Australian Ballet donated an extensive series of scrapbooks recording many of their performances. This set of scrapbooks will be an invaluable consolidated resource for researchers interested in the development of the company and its work.
Eminent Australians interviewed during the period include economist Professor Max Corden interviewed by Professor Bob Gregory, artist Robert Hannaford interviewed by Rob Linn and Aboriginal elder Gerald Blitner interviewed by Dr Martin Thomas. Dr Peter Pockley interviewed several more leading scientists including entomologist Dr Max Whitten, immunologist and Australian of the Year Professor Ian Frazer, and biochemist Professor John Shine.
Curator of Dance, Lee Christofis continued to interview people involved in dance, especially the Ballets Russes tours. During this period he interviewed stage scenery artist Paul Kathner and former member of the Ballet Russes Tatiana Leskova. Interviews with actors and performers were conducted by both Bill Stephens and James Waites. Mr Stephens interviewed actor Lorraine Bayley, theatre critic Karl Levett and pianist Dale Ringland. Mr Waites interviewed actor Lynn Murphy.
The Library’s extensive archival documentation of Australian involvement in the Antarctic was augmented with an interview of Harry Black, former Antarctic expedition leader by John Farquarson.
New social history projects commenced during this time included the Water and shifting cultural values project. Daniel Connell interviewed sixteen water resource experts for this project. The Sports oral history project commenced with the recording of an interview with Olympic rower Megan Marcks by Robyn Poke.
Ann-Mari Jordens interviewed Burmese refugee Paw Gay Ler, migrant educator Merran Martin, Irani refugee Simin Farzan, human rights worker Jane Keogh, Afghan refugee Mustafa Jawadi and Vietnamese refugee Van Thi-The Huynh, all for the Refugees project.
James Waites recorded interviews with nurses and carers Patricia Kennedy, Geoffrey Cole and Margaret Mines, and HIV-AIDS activist Donald Baxter for the Australian Response to HIV-AIDS project.
Interviews for Australian Research Council funded projects on Australian war correspondents, the history of the High Court and former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam were also acquired. Associate Professor Jenny Hocking interviewed Graham Freudenberg, John Menadue, Margaret Whitlam and Clyde Cameron for her Whitlam biography. Sir Gerard Brennan was interviewed by Dr Fiona Wheeler and Professor Michael Coper for the High Court project. War correspondents Neil Gilleton and Ron Eccles were interviewed by Dr Richard Trembath.
An interesting acquisition was a soundscape recorded by Rob Willis at Melbourne’s Victoria markets on a Saturday afternoon. Mr Willis is one of the Library’s most experienced interviewers, and is currently interviewing Australians affected by severe and prolonged drought.
A highlight of the Library’s acquisitions for the period was the purchase of an album containing two original pictures from the Burke and Wills Expedition of 1860–1861. The album, which sold at Bonhams & Goodman auction in Melbourne, sheds new light on a great Australian story. The two drawings in the album, both dated 1861, are by William Hodgkinson, a literary editor with The Age, who joined the Burke and Wills expedition at Swan Hill in 1860. Hodgkinson's dramatic watercolour Bulla shows the expeditioners, their rifles smoking, in an improvised stockade facing a large group of advancing Aborigines armed with clubs and spears. Unlike other colonial pictures of armed encounters between Europeans and Aborigines, it shows both sides as equally resolute. The other pencil sketch, Koorliattoo, shows the desolate landscape and the camp where the weaker members of the expedition were left. Hodgkinson survived the expedition and found his way to Adelaide where he presented the drawings to Miss Younghusband. The album also contains a love poem by Hodgkinson, drawings, watercolours, poems, prose, cuttings and keepsakes which are a window into mid-19th century life in Adelaide.
A watercolour, Native cats of Australia, attributed to Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, the artist on the French scientific expedition commanded by Nicolas Baudin, was purchased at auction from Lawson Menzies. The watercolour depicts two quolls eating a dead seal at what is thought to be King Island. If further research confirms the attribution to Lesueur, the watercolour will be one of only a few original works by the artist held in Australian collecting institutions.
The Library purchased a set of 149 photographs by Andrew Chapman of Federal election campaigns from November 11, 1975 through to the conclusion of the 2004 election. The collection includes portraits of politicians on the campaign trail, advisors, commentators, media, and party supporters.
Qantas donated photographs of the aircraft Wunala Dreaming, Yananyi Dreaming and Nalanji Dreaming, all painted in their Aboriginal art livery designed by Balarinji Designs.
Choi, Joon. Paekche. Kyŏnggi-do, Paju-si : Hangilsa, 2006. Asian Collections acquired a collection of high quality photographs showing antiquities from the Kingdom of Paekche, produced by the famous Korean photographer Choi Joon in a limited edition of 500 copies, consisting of 101 leaves of colour photographs. The Kingdom of Paekche, in south-western Korea, dated from BC 18 to AD 660. Paekche was one of the Three Kingdoms on the peninsula, and was eventually conquered by its neighbour Silla, which unified Korea in 668. Unfortunately much of Paekche's rich artistic heritage was lost during the kingdom's downfall. However this volume shows a number of surviving masterpieces of Paekche ceramics, metalwork, stone and other artworks. One of the most outstanding is a gilt-bronze incense burner.
The Library continues to collect a wide range of current books and journals published overseas.
Identifying Australian authors and books with Australian content that are published overseas is a major priority for the Library. In the past five months several hundred overseas scholarly titles, published between 2005 and 2007, with chapters containing Australian content were identified using advanced search facilities on a library supplier’s database and were ordered for the collection. In addition, the AustLit database was searched to identify additional Australian authors published overseas. Each author entry in the database lists titles published in other languages. Lists of Australian authors published overseas have been sent to a number of overseas suppliers to be acquired for the Australian collection.
Earlier in the year a project was undertaken by a member of staff to identify and source current Papua New Guinea material published in print and online format. Following on from the project, catalogues of recent PNG publications from two suppliers have been searched and orders placed for material not held. A list of other material identified during and since the project is being prepared and will be sent to the Library’s Pacific supplier to purchase on our behalf. A number of electronic publications were also identified for the collection.
Approximately 130 English language and Thai language books and several serials were purchased from collection of Franklin Huffman, an American specialist in Mon-Khmer languages. The collection is very strong in linguistic material and complements other collections held by the Library, such as the Shorto linguistics collection.
To complement and enhance the print collection, the Library also acquires electronic and microform research collections. During the last five months, the following major resources have been made available:
Origins network provides online access to British, Irish and Scottish ancestral information, dating back to the 13th century. The database includes marriage registers, wills, court and apprentice records, as well as original maps and plans.
Asian business and reference provides detailed information on companies, economies, markets, international trade and overall business conditions throughout the Eastern Hemisphere.
Emerald management Xtra 125 is a full text database of 125 high quality peer-reviewed management and library journals published by Emerald Publishing.
American book prices current. A record of books, manuscripts, autographs, maps and broadsides sold at auction from September 1975 to the present. Countries covered include North America and the UK, with sales data from other countries such as Switzerland, Germany, Monaco, Holland and Australia.
Korean Mission records: papers of the Korean Missions, 1889-1987, part 2. 18 reels complement the first part already held. The records support study of Korean history and life in the twentieth century as seen through the eyes of western missionaries working in the community. Part two includes various books, pamphlets and periodicals published by the Korean Mission, including the quarterly magazine Morning calm.
China Inland Mission, 1865-1951, part 3. 22 reels complement the first two parts already held. Part 3 contains the minutes and papers of the China Inland Mission.
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 in this period include:
The whole Byble : that is the holy scripture of the Olde and Newe testament faythfully translated into Englyshe by Myles Couerdale, and newly ouersene and correcte. M.D.L. [Coverdale Bible] [Zurich] : Printed [by Christoph Froschauer, and S. Mierdman?] for Andrewe Hester, 1550. Miles Coverdale produced the first English translation of the complete Bible in 1535 and a revised edition in 1550, with three slightly different printings known. No perfect copies of the original 1535 edition are thought to exist and the 1550 edition is very rare. The State Library of Victoria is the only other Australian library known to hold a copy of the 1550 edition. The Coverdale Bible is a valuable addition to the Library’s already significant collection of rare Bibles in print, microfilm and electronic format.
The myth of Sisyphus: an essay by Albert Camus. Translated from the French by Justin O’Brien. Imagery by Patricia Holburd Heidenheimer. The Library’s copy is a signed copy – no. 2 of a limited edition of 20 copies.
| About This Site | Copyright | Privacy | Accessibility | Site Map | Site Search | Content A-Z | Contact Us |