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Publications The task at hand for Alec Bolton in 1970 was to establish a publishing program derived from the Library's diverse Australian Collections: I suppose I took the initiative of suggesting things. Some of the collection people in Manuscripts and Pictorial were really, I think, too diffident in coming up with suggestions. I found it very hard to spend a lot of time, for example, in Manuscripts where it was necessary to spend time to see what was there of which books might be made. It was always understood that there were some particular treasures in the Library's Collection which it was hoped would be published. One was a work called the Challicum sketchbook, one was the great Hunter sketchbook, another great treasure of the library was the Bligh notebook, another was the Burney journalthe journal of James Burney who had been on Cook's second voyage to the Pacific. Burney's journal was in fact the first general book that we finally got up and produced. It didn’t come out until 1975 so you can see there was a very, very long lead time. Alec Bolton Oral History, 1996 As Bolton notes the publishing process was slow. The Bligh Notebook was not published until 1986. In 1983, the Library’s publishing program was greatly assisted by the Australian writer Morris West’s generous endowment of a Trust Fund. Today the publishing arm of the National Library seeks material across the numerous departments of the Library: Oral History, Ephemera, Maps, Newspapers, Music, Asian Collections, Pictorial and Manuscripts. In 1991 the first of the Self Portraits series was edited by the writer David Foster and featured David Campbell, Maie Casey and Charmian Clift, whose papers are held in Manuscripts. Later, Geoffrey Dutton produced his edition of interviews with renowned Australian visual artists, among them Clifton Pugh, Donald Friend and Grace Cossington Smith. More recently the Library has published a series of books, Acquired Tastes: Celebrating Australia’s Culinary History, A Sporting Nation: Celebrating Australia’s Sporting Life and most recently The Endless Playground: Celebrating Australian Childhood. The series is directed at a popular market and further demonstrates the Library’s desire to reach as wide an audience as possible. This series also affirms the rich publishing possibilities within the Collection. National
Library of Australia News, Volume
XI Number 6, March 2001 Voices,
Volume V Number 3, Spring 1995 |