OUR NATION'S ALBUM: The National Library of Australia's First 100 Years

(text only version)

Over the past 100 years the National Library of Australia has collected and documented the national Australian identity born of Federation. Through the assembly of a rich and varied collection and the introduction of vital information services, the National Library has ensured its position as an important research Library of world standing and one of Australia's pre-eminent cultural institutions.

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Birth of a Library
Bush Capital Pioneers
A Great Public Library
Our Heritage Revealed
From the Bush to Beyond
Housing the Collection


Birth of a Library

In 1901 a Commonwealth Parliamentary Library was established to serve the newly formed Federal Parliament of Australia. In time, this Library would evolve into the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library and the National Library of Australia, but the drive to collect and document the Australian identity was there from the beginning.

Between 1901 and 1927 the Federal Parliament of Australia occupied the Victorian Parliament building in Spring Street, Melbourne. Although the Commonwealth Government had access to the Victorian Parliamentary Library, it soon became clear that provision had to be made for the time when the Commonwealth Parliament had a separate building and therefore needed a separate library.

In 1901 the two houses of Parliament selected a Library Committee to be responsible for the establishment of a Commonwealth Parliamentary Library. Arthur Wadsworth, Head Librarian of the Victorian Parliamentary Library, was appointed interim Commonwealth Parliamentary Librarian until such time as the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library, and the Parliament that it served, found a permanent home.

Parliament House Melbourne c. 1900
photograph
Pictorial Collection

In 1907 the Committee reported to Parliament:

The Library Committee is keeping before it the ideal of building up, for the time when the Parliament shall be established in the Federal Capital, a great Public Library on the lines of the world-famed Library of Congress at Washington; such a Library, indeed, shall be worthy of the Australian Nation; the home of literature, not of a state, or of a period, but of the world, and of all time.

The aspirations of a Library to be ‘not of a state, or of a period, but of the world’ looked far beyond providing a library service to politicians and reflected the lofty ambitions of the young nation for whom anything and everything seemed possible. In reality, the task before the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library—establishing a research library of distinction—was formidable.

In the early years of the Library, building the collections was a priority. Equally important, however, was the need to provide access to those collections. A sixth edition (1896) of the classification system created by the Mr Melvil Dewey, Director of the New York State Library, was bought by the Library in 1905. A standardised classification system not only made the Library more efficient but also paved the way for effective communication between other libraries. In the same year, Arthur Wadsworth began ordering catalogue cards from the American Library Association Board and began inserting them into the Library’s card catalogue according to the Dewey system. With a satisfactory system of cataloguing in place, the next step was to begin expanding the Library’s collections.

Interior Parliamentary Library, Parliament House Melbourne pre–1927
photograph
Pictorial Collection

In 1911 the Library acquired the superb Petherick Collection of Australian and Pacific material. Consisting of 10 000 books, 6500 pamphlets, maps, manuscripts and pictures, the Petherick Collection was the foundation stone of the National Library’s Australian Collections. Following its acquisition, Arthur Wadsworth and his assistant Kenneth Binns proposed a separate Australian Collections section be established. In 1919 the Australian Collections section was officially created.

Also of immense assistance in the task of building the Library’s collections was the introduction of the Copyright Act. Passed in 1912, the Act required the legal deposit by Australian publishers of one copy of every book published in Australia.

Between 1914 and 1925 the Library began taking a national role through the publication of Historical Records of Australia, edited by Frederick Watson. Historical Records of Australia provided the first comprehensive index of primary source material of Australian history. The publication was not only an invaluable tool for historical researchers, but was also a demonstration of the Library's commitment to working collaboratively with other libraries.

Portrait of Edward Augustus Petherick and Mary Petherick
Pictorial Collection PIC/3709

With the Petherick Collection now forming the nucleus of its Australian Collections, the Library began collecting other material relating to Australia. In 1920, an issue of the Melbourne Advertiser, published on 1 January 1838, was purchased. This issue was believed to be the last survivor of a print run of 30. Acquired in the same year was the 27 October 1838 edition of the Port Phillip Gazette. In that year, the Library also purchased 25 Norman Lindsay drawings for £800.

Although the scope of the Library’s collections was rapidly moving beyond parliamentary material and beginning to strongly reflect the Library’s aspirations to be a ‘national library’, its situation within Parliament House made it vulnerable to political tensions. In 1920 Andrew Osborn began his career at the Library well aware of parliamentary influence:

At that time the National Library decided that it wanted to have what it called a cadet. Its method of recruiting the young person was to go to the headmasters of the six public schools in Victoria and invite each headmaster to nominate a boy. The boy who was nominated from Scotch College had the strong support of the Speaker of the House; the boy who was nominated from Melbourne Grammar had the strong support of the President of the Senate. Neither the Speaker nor the President would give into the other, and so in the long run the selection went to the boy who had no political backing; and so that was the way I started in the National Library.

Andrew Osborn Oral History, 1962

In the 1920s, Parliament House Melbourne was a privileged environment to work in:

Life in Parliament House in Melbourne was a very different story to life in Parliament House in Canberra. The pace of life in Melbourne was very, very slow by comparison to anything that exists in Canberra today. We were authorised, when Parliament was not in session, to have an organised cricket or tennis match once every fortnight. When Parliament was in session it could be once a month. We had in the grounds of Parliament House a cricket pitch, a bowling green, a tennis court, and every lunch hour we quite casually played there for an hour or two without having to be concerned about time.

Andrew Osborn, Oral History, 1962

Meanwhile the collections continued to grow. Perhaps the most historically significant single acquisition of the early years of the Library was the purchase of the Endeavour journal of Captain Cook in 1923. It represents a moment of transition between the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library and the National Library of Australia, as the title of Commonwealth National Library was adopted shortly after the journal was purchased.

Staff Members 1920s
photograph
Pictorial Collection
(Harold White second from right, Kenneth Binns centre, next to White)

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Bush Capital Pioneers

In 1927, following the completion of Parliament House, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library moved to Canberra. Throughout 1926 preparations for the move of over 100 000 books were being made. Although the actual packing of the books was time-consuming, transportation proved to be the more pressing problem.

Kenneth Binns was in charge of the move and described the complex stages of conveying the books from Parliament House, Melbourne to Parliament House, Canberra:

They went by lorry from Parliament House, Melbourne to Spencer Street. There they were transferred by special rail truck, but this truck was a Melbourne or Victorian rail truck with a 5ft 3in gauge, and could not go on the New South Wales section, which is 4 ft 8in. This involved retrucking at Albury. From Albury they went by rail to Queanbeyan, which is the nearest town to Canberra … on the Melbourne–Sydney railroad. Fortunately, all that had to be done was to transfer the 70 or 80 cases which at last reached Queanbeyan but were not, of course, as yet even in Commonwealth territory. Queanbeyan retrucked them to the siding at Canberra for a rail siding was the only rail provision then existing in the national territory, and this rail siding was about four to five miles from Parliament House.

Kenneth Binns Oral History, 1967

Site Being Cleared for Parliament House Canberra  1920s
photograph
Pictorial Collection

First box of books loaded in removal of Library to Canberra 1926
photograph
Pictorial Collection

William James Mildenhall (fl. 1921–1962)
Library staff awaiting the arrival of material from Melbourne 1927
photograph
Mildenhall Collection
Pictorial Collection
(Kenneth Binns far left, Harold White third from left)

Although Federal Parliament now had its own building, and through this its own Parliamentary Library, there remained the problem of the growing collections of material considered to be of national significance. It would take a further nine years before the National Library found a home on Kings Avenue in 1936.

In 1928 Kenneth Binns succeeded Arthur Wadsworth as Head Librarian of what would become the National Library. Staffing the Library was of course an important issue for Binns, and in the mid-1930s he began to recruit young graduates to Canberra. Laurie Fitzhardinge arrived in 1934, Clifford Burmester in 1935, Pauline Fanning in 1936 and Larry Lake in 1937. Although Fizhardinge would leave the Library in the 1940s to pursue an academic career, Lake, Burmester and Fanning were to have long and distinguished careers within the National Library.

In 1934 Canberra was very much an outpost, ‘the bush capital’, with a population of under 10 000 people. Laurie Fitzhardinge described his bleak arrival:

I arrived in Canberra in June 1934, midwinter, at five o'clock in the morning as one did in those days, on the train. I was told that I could stay in my berth for a while if I wanted to. As soon as it became daylight I went out. There was snow on Mount Jerrabomberra, a wide open plain surrounding the railway station, the only building in sight was a garage, where there's still a garage now, and that was the only building anywhere in sight. So I staggered out onto the station. I found that the taxis, if any, had all gone back home and that the bus had forgotten to come down. There was nobody there to meet me or to meet anyone else as far as I could see—I suppose the other people had caught the taxis … So I left my suitcase at the railway station and having got some directions walked across the paddocks to Brassey House.

Laurie Fitzhardinge Oral History, 1983

Unknown photographer
Portrait of Kenneth Binns (1882-1969)
photograph
Pictorial Collection

Railway Station 1930s
photograph
Collingridge Collection
Pictorial Collection

Brassey House 1930s
photograph
Pictorial Collection

While Laurie Fitzhardinge was left to find his own way across the paddocks, Larry Lake and Pauline Fanning (nee Dixon) were met at the station by Kenneth Binns. With a staff of 25, it was not difficult for Binns to keep a paternal eye on the young recruits:

I didn’t think of Binns as being aloof and I probably had some contact, or more contact than a person would nowadays have with the head of the institution. In fact, he prided himself, especially with younger people who were away from home in being in loco parentis’ and he became quite hurt and offended if you didn’t discuss your personal problems with him. If you did you got quite sympathetic treatment but if you behaved otherwise you didn’t get very sympathetic treatment.

Pauline Fanning Oral History, 1988

The 1927 opening of Parliament House also signalled the birth of a capital city. In the 1930s, Canberra consisted of less than a dozen suburbs collected around three shopping centres: Civic, Kingston and Manuka. The city had one cinema, The Capitol, at Manuka. For most of the 1930s, Canberra was served by the Blue Moon Café and three Greek cafés. Beyond the nascent city, cleared paddocks gave way to mountainous bush.

Beauehamp House c.1934
photograph
Pictorial Collection

Blue Moon Café, Alinga st, Civic Centre Jan 1953
photograph
Dwyer Collection
Pictorial Collection

Unlike other Australian cities whose evolution was gradual, Canberra came into existence suddenly. Not yet equipped to provide permanent housing to the ever-increasing influx of public servants, politicians, teachers and functionaries necessary for the operation of the new political centre. Hostels such as Brassey House, Hotel Kurrajong, Gorman House and the Hotel Canberra were set up to provide temporary accommodation for the rapidly expanding population.

Living and working in the new city was a unique experience. The graduates worked in the political environment of Parliament House, but many also shared accommodation with younger politicians in the hostels. Laurie Fitzhardinge would walk to work with Members of Parliament John McEwen and Archie Cameron.

Parliament, however, came as a shock for the young and academically minded Fitzhardinge:

I was a shy person I suppose, probably an elitist intellectual snob. I never went out of my way to cultivate politicians. I do remember, and this is a very unfair snap impression of a crude young man, but when Parliament first assembled in ’34—under Joe Lyons, it met very rarely and for short periods—when the first session came in ’34 I wondered who this mob of rather criminal looking types who had suddenly appeared in the corridors of the House were, I realised that this was Parliament assembling.

Laurie Fitzhardinge Oral History, 1938

Hotel Kurrajong 1940s
photograph
E.W. Searle Collection
Pictorial Collection

On the Wharves – Brisbane  1930s
photograph
Pictorial Collection
‘Probably the only true democrat in his own cabinet.’
(Joe Lyons right hand side)

Pauline Dixon and her husband to be, Bill Fanning, would play bridge in the evenings with parliamentarians and their wives:

Well, the Western Australian and South Australian members rarely returned at the weekend. They used to be there and we used to find them quite agreeable company to keep. People like Archie Cameron and his wife and Walter Nairn, Senator Hayes and his wife.

Pauline Fanning Oral History, 1988

No doubt aware that the close working relationship between librarians and politicians could be jeopardised by political bias, Kenneth Binns took a negative view of librarians joining political parties. Not all heeded Binns' advice. According to Laurie Fitzhardinge, Larry Lake:

was indeed I think actually so far left that he was actually a member of the Australian Labor Party … Binns thought this was quite improper and carpeted him, not I think for being left-wing but for being a member of a Party.

Laurie Fitzhardinge Oral History, 1983

Albert Hall May 1933
photograph
Pictorial Collection

Bridge Competition, Albert Hall  1930s
photograph
Pictorial Collection

If Larry Lake's political and professional responsibilities came into conflict, occasionally so did his social and working life:

I was on duty on Friday nights anyhow. They didn't go on sitting after dinner as a rule. This was a bit of a bore because all the entertainment, all the dances, took place on Friday night in Canberra. If you wanted to run a dance in those days, you could take over the Hotel Canberra or the Hotel Kingston and it cost you nothing, you'd have the ballroom and the billiard room and they ran the bar until 11 o'clock or midnight or something and that was their profit. Most of the dances were at the Hotel Canberra, and this was quite, you know a distinguished sort of occasion, everybody wore evening dress …

I'd go home for my dinner on my bicycle. I several times put on my evening wear, have my dinner and ride back to Parliament House with my tails streaming behind my bicycle and officiate in the members’ reading room in full evening dress, because I was the only one there, there was no one else except the members and they didn't mind at all, they thought it was quite fun. I remember old Sir Henry Gullett, and I've mentioned Mr Holt, and I can remember on a couple of occasions Mr Holt coming about a quarter to nine in the evening and saying ‘I've got the books I want,’ and perhaps there were two or three other members, ‘We’ve got all the books we’re going to take away, we’ll borrow these, and there’s no one down in the party room except old so-and-so and he’s only reading the newspapers, I don’t think he’s coming up to the library. I’m sure nobody would mind, we can see you’re doing something else tonight, if you shut up and went.’

Larry Lake Oral History, 1967

Hotel Canberra, Interior 1952
photograph
Pictorial Collection

In the 1930s men were paid substantially more than women for the same job. When the Library employed Pauline Fanning as a cataloguer in 1936 the female salary ranged from between £96 to £352 a year. The male salary was £50 higher. Not only were there inequities in pay, but a married woman could not be permanently employed in the Public Service. Pauline Fanning remembers being told that Kenneth Binns always demanded photographs from female applicants so that he could pick those least likely to get married.

Pauline Fanning Oral History, 1988

In 1941 Pauline Fanning married and lost her permanent position in the Library. Harold White, then Assistant Librarian, was impressed by her work. In 1949 when Pauline Fanning was pregnant with her second child White re-employed her on a part-time basis with the unusual condition of being allowed to work from home.

At this time censorship was a central issue for the Library as it was for the country. Banned books were stored in a safe. However, at times the censorship of a book occurred after it had already appeared on the Library’s shelves. In 1936 the opposing views of the then Federal Treasurer (and later Governor-General) R.G. Casey and the young member for Faulkner (and later Prime Minister) Harold Holt on Aldous Huxley's Eyeless In Gaza made the headlines: "Politicians Differ About Huxley: "Dull" says Mr Casey. "Brilliant" says Mr Holt" According to the article, Mr Holt was reluctant to surrender his copy to Kenneth Binns, claiming "I always like to read Huxley at least twice," he said, "But it may be difficult in this case."

Mrs Pauline Fanning— photographed in the stacks c.1960
photograph
Pictorial Collection

Portrait of Harold Holt 1940
photograph
Pictorial Collection

In her Australian Dictionary of Biography entry on Kenneth Binns, Pauline Fanning wrote: 

Binns was a cautious and practical man whose period of office spanned the difficult restrictive years of the Depression and World War II. Nevertheless the Library had emerged as a national institution and many of its successful developments originated during his administration.

It was Binns who had secured the Endeavour journal for the Library and in the 1930s and early 1940s two outstanding innovations mark Binns’ contribution to the National Library.

1936 saw the establishment of the historical film and speaking record library. The Library’s interest in non-print cultural records was years before its time. It was Binns’ assistant Harold White who recognised the cultural importance of film and recorded voices and which eventually saw the establishment of an Oral History Section and a film collection within the Library.

In 1939 the distinguished ornithologist and author of Birds of Australia (London: Witherby 1901–27), Gregory Macalister Mathews, donated his collection of books, pamphlets, reprints, manuscripts and pictorial material to the Library. The result of nearly 20 years work, Gregory Mathews’ generous gift to the Library is considered to be the finest collection of material relating to the study of Australian birds. Among the pictorial items are works by John Gould, J.W. Lewin and Lilian Medland, together with manuscripts by Mathews, John Gould and Sylvester Diggles.

Presentation of Paramount Film’s Services of King’s Tribute Film 1930s
photograph
Collingridge Collection
Pictorial Collection

In 1944 Binns sent Courtenay Key to London to represent the National Library in Europe. In 1945 the Library followed the London appointment with the establishment of a Liaison Officer in New York.

The task of building a National Library that could serve the research purposes of a nation, whose cultural roots were largely European and specifically British, was daunting. In posting someone to Europe the Library was able to participate in the much larger British market. It was Key who began negotiations with the New Zealand art dealer Rex Nan Kivell for his immense and important collection of paintings, prints, maps, manuscripts and books relating to Australia and the Pacific.

In London the Liaison Officer also began what would prove to be the enormous task that came to be known as the Australian Joint-Copying Project, the systematic copying of British documents that related to Australia. Set up in conjunction with the State Library of New South Wales, the Australian Joint-Copying Project would continue until the early 1990s.

Despite the limitations imposed on Binns’ period as Head Librarian by the Depression and World War II, his recognition of the importance of film and sound recording, along with his strategic placement of liaison officers in London and New York, positioned the Library in readiness for the expansive years that followed under Harold White’s direction. 

Gotto, B
Portrait of Gregory Macalister Mathews 1929
oil on canvas; 91.6 x 71.1 cm
Pictorial Collection

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A Great Public Library

The postwar period, from the late 1940s until the early 1960s, saw a dramatic increase in the number of formed collections acquired by the National Library.In 1947 Harold White took over from Kenneth Binns as Head Librarian. The diversity of the collections acquired under White’s administration are a tribute to his remarkable foresight. From Asian studies through to the papers of feminist Bessie Rischbieth, White ensured that little was overlooked that one day might be thought to be of historical and cultural significance. The collection policy of this period, however, also reflects the urgent need of the Library to fulfil its charter as a research library of distinction. An obvious way to rapidly build the collections was to acquire formed collections.

In 1939 the Library first heard about the important collection of Rex Nan Kivell through the writer and patron Maie Casey. A New Zealand-born London dealer, Nan Kivell had collected material relating to the discovery and settlement of lands in the South Seas. However, it wasn’t until 1962 that the Library was able to secure the purchase of the collection.

In 1946 the Library acquired the first stage of the Ferguson Collection of books, manuscripts and pictorial material, nearly a decade after Sir John Ferguson's presentation of newspapers and periodicals (1937). The Ferguson Collection consists of 34 000 items and is the largest private collection in the Library’s possession. It covers many areas relating to Australia and the Pacific, including sociology, publishing history, poetry, and economics. Among the treasures of the collection is the manuscript of the journal kept by James Burney on Captain Cook’s second voyage to the Pacific. After Ferguson's death in 1969, the remainder of the collection was purchased by the Library from the trustees of the estate.

Axel Poignant (1906–1986)
Harold White 1950s
photograph
Pictorial Collection

Lady Casey 1960s
photograph
Pictorial Collection
Lady Casey’s Papers are held in the NLA Manuscript Collection

Keast Burke (1896-1974)
Portrait of Sir John Ferguson (1881-1969)
colour photograph
Pictorial Collection

In the 1950s the Library began the systematic acquisition of publications from Asia. It has since built up the largest research collection on Asia in Australia, with over half a million volumes. In April 1962 a separate Asian section was established to oversee the growing Chinese, Japanese, and later Korean, Thai and Indonesian materials.

Since the 1950s a number of major formed collections in Asian and Western languages have been acquired from scholars and bibliophiles. They include the London Missionary Society Collection on China (1961), the Braga Collection on the Portuguese in Asia (1966), the Coedes Collection of Southeast Asia (1970) and the Luce Collection on Burma (1980).

Viewing of the Magna Carta with the British High Commissioner 1952
photograph
Pictorial Collection
(Harold White second from right)
The Library  acquired a 1927 Inspeximus issue of the Magna Carta in 1952.

Image reproduced from M. Paske-Smith, Western Barbarians in Japan and Formosa in Tokugawa Days, 1603-1868, (Kobe, Japan: J.L. Thompson and Co. Ltd, [1930])
Harold S. Williams Collection; from the Asian Collections

Through its London Liaison Officer the Library was in the geographical position to negotiate and bid for a number of significant British collections. The Kashnor Collection of British social, political and economic history of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the David Nichol Smith Collection of eighteenth-century British literature, a collection of French Revolutionary pamphlets, and two major British private libraries, the Clifford and the De Vesci, are key collections, among numerous others, obtained by the Liaison Officers during the 1950s and 1960s.

Together with the Asian and Australian Collections, the acquisition of these British and European collections legitimised the National Library’s right to claim itself a research library of world standing. A number of factors, however, combined to make this period so profitable for the Library.

Clifford Burmester’s discovery of the Kashnor Collection aptly illustrates how chance as much as planning played its part in building the collections. Browsing in a London bookshop, Burmester stumbled by accident upon the collection:

He took me upstairs and left me to it. Casting my eye around, it lit upon shelf upon shelf of early editions in political economy, John Stuart Mill, Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus and others, the lot … when Jackson returned I inquired whether the collection was for sale. He told me that it was not ‘trade stock’ but the old man’s pet hobby and personal collection and that he doubted very much if he would agree to sell it. I asked him to let the boss know that I was interested and he agreed.

Clifford Burmester's unpublished memoirs, Manuscript Collection

In 1953 the Library purchased the Kashnor Collection of 4774 books, pamphlets and 200 manuscripts for £15 000. The Library had secured itself a bargain. Included among the collection was King's Manuscript of Natural and Political Observations Upon the Condition and State of England (1696), which alone was valued at £15 000.

Presentation of the Alfred Deakin Papers 1965
photograph
Pictorial Collection
(Robert Menzies far right)

Harold White receives a portrait of Henry Handel Richardson by Rupert Bunny presented by Lady Casey  April 1969
photograph
Pictorial Collection

White's administration also coincided with the end of the period of fiscal restraint imposed by the war years and the Depression. The close working relationship established between politicians and the Parliamentary Library would also prove useful. As Burmester records, Robert Menzies, Prime Minister from 1949 to 1966, was very supportive of major and expensive acquisitions, such as the Nichol Smith Collection:

When Menzies received the submission he noted it ‘The Eighteenth Century! How could I refuse!’ He was similarly generous with the Clifford Collection.

Clifford Burmester’s unpublished memoirs, Manuscript Collection

Menzies made a cryptic reference to White's powers of persuasion when opening a Nan Kivell exhibition at the festival of Adelaide in 1962:

But I think I ought to say a word or two to you about Mr Nan Kivell. I'd heard about, I've seen some of his remarkable collection. I’d been told [about it by] Mr Harold White, the Commonwealth Librarian, who has a prehensile grip on anything that matters from the point of view of Australian history and records—marvellous! A grip like a pawnbroker, do you know what I mean?

Although capable of great charm, it was White’s tenacity that led to the success of many of the acquisition negotiations during this period. Finding the money was, of course, a central issue for a Library in the process of expanding its collections, yet throughout the 1950s and well into the 1960s the other problem that faced the Library was space. Without a building to unite the collections, the Library remained dispersed around Canberra. As Clifford Burmester has commented:

It never ceased to amaze me that people had the faith to entrust these papers to an institution still without a home.

Clifford Burmester's unpublished memoirs, Manuscript Collection

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Our Heritage Revealed

In 1968 the National Library moved to its new and permanent home on the shore of Lake Burley Griffin. The new building united the separate collections, formerly dispersed around Canberra. Through the Asian Collections, Manuscript, Map, Pictorial, Rare Books, Newspapers, Music and Ephemera Reading Rooms, the collections were now available to scholars and readers under the one roof. An impressive Main Reading Room provided access to the general reference collection. The theatre could operate both as a space in which to view films from the collections and a forum for conferences and seminars. Room for exhibitions and displays were also provided.

Since 1968, visitors to the Library have been able to view individual items from the Pictorial Collection on request, as well as a range of free exhibitions. The new building invited the public inside to appreciate the magnitude and diversity of the Library's Collection. However, the building was also a statement about the complex interactive role the Library played in Australia’s cultural life.

In 1970 the Library appointed Alec Bolton as publisher. Although the Library had been publishing since its early years, Bolton’s background in mainstream publishing injected new life into the Library’s publications. Until his retirement in 1988, Bolton oversaw the expansion of the Library's Publications program, directing attention to the wealth of material held in the Manuscript, Map and Pictorial Collections.

Alec Bolton, Printer and Publisher c.1988
photograph
Pictorial Collection

Another means of sharing the Collection with the public was through the display of the film collection. Throughout the 1970s until the establishment of ScreenSound Australia (formerly the National Film and Sound Archive) in 1984, the Library’s public film program greatly enriched Canberra’s cultural life. The eclectic nature of the films shown, as well as the significant factor that the public did not pay to see the films, reflected the Library’s changing policy of reaching out with its Collection to as broad a public as possible. Children’s films, early Australian films of historical significance, cult horror flicks such as Cat People, Hollywood classics The Mark of Zorro with Tyrone Power and Swing Time with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, art-house and new-wave feminism were all shown. The film sessions were able to generate a radically new and diverse audience for the Library beyond scholars and researchers. The Library was also enriching Canberra’s cultural life.

The late 1980s were to give new impetus to the Library’s exhibition program. The Library had been running exhibitions since the early days of the Parliamentary Library in Melbourne, yet the establishment of a section devoted to the curating and implementing of exhibitions brought with it a new level of professionalism. The first exhibition displayed by the new section was People, Print and Paper (1988). This has been followed consistently by other important exhibitions such as Paradise Possessed: The Rex Nan Kivell Collection (1998) and The World Upside Down: Australia 1788–1830 (2000), all drawing on the Library's Collection. In 2001 the Library plans one of its most ambitious exhibitions to date, Treasures from the World’s Great Libraries. Generously lent from the collections of many of the world’s most impressive libraries, some of the highlights of the exhibition are one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a Gutenburg Bible, and an Albert Einstein manuscript.

Collection of Fox Feature Films
27 November 1975
photograph
Film Collection

Selection of items from the Paradise Possessed Exhibition 1998
Poster
Exhibitions Collection

Since 1968, the Library’s Collection has continued to grow. In 1971 the Library set up the Regional Office in Jakarta to manage the cooperative Indonesian Acquisitions programme, collecting Indonesian publications for the National Library and other Australian and international research institutions.

While the Library's collection policy recognised the important relationship between Australia and its nearest Asian neighbour, Indonesia, it was also maintain its commitment to conserve Australian identity. In 1975 the first instalment of the papers of Sir Robert Menzies was received. These important documents of Australian political history built upon the other seminal collections, such as the Alfred Deakin and the Edmund Barton papers.

As the National Library's reputation as a repository of Australian political history continued to grow, so too did its reputation as a custodian of Australian literary history. In 1975 the Library also acquired the papers of the highly respected Australian novelist Christina Stead.

Christina Stead 1950s
photograph
Daley Collection
Pictorial Collection

In the late 1970s a number of significant musical and theatrical collections were purchased by the Library.

The acquisition of the library of J.C. Williamson, the Australian theatrical company, provided an extensive and valuable musical collection ranging from rare nineteenth and twentieth century operatic works in published and manuscript form through to musical comedy and popular music. Included in the collection are photographs of performers and performances, as well as Australian theatre programs from J.C. Williamson productions between 1927 and 1954. 

The Brady Collection consists of 8000 items of popular music published from the 1880s to the 1950s and was purchased from the Australian pianist, teacher and music historian, Miss Kathleen Brady.

The Lewis Collection of popular and dance music from the 1920s to the 1960s was donated to the Library by Mrs Barbara Lewis. Consisting of approximately 1800 items of mainly published scores for piano, the Collection also includes some arrangements for small orchestras by Mrs Lewis’ husband the musician and bandleader, Reg Lewis. Among the many notable scores are a number of Jewish and Italian ballads.

The Library has sustained its interest in collecting material related to Australia’s social, cultural, and political history. In 1995 the Library acquired the papers of Edward Koiki Mabo. Restricted until at least 2005, the papers document both the private and public life of the Indigenous-rights worker. 

Two magazines established in the 1990s extended the role of the Library as a forum for contemporary Australian cultural life. Through National Library of Australia News, the Library has continued its task of exploring and promoting the Library’s Collections. Voices (1991–1997) articulated the role of the Library in promoting and fostering contemporary Australia’s creative and intellectual community, through the publication of prose and poetry by contemporary writers, many of whose oral histories and manuscripts were either already housed within the Library or would shortly be so.

Contributing to the broader cultural discourse has, of course, been part of the Library’s program for many years. So too has forming bridges between the past and the present. The series of seminars on eighteenth-century literature that followed the acquisition of the David Nichol Smith collection illustrate the Library’s commitment to Australia’s intellectual life. Over the last 10 years the Library has played an increasing role in intellectual dialogue through its seminars and conferences, including Kenneth Slessor Remembered (1991), Alfred Deakin: Public Man, Private Spirit (1997), Voices and Memory (1997), Malthus and his Legacy: 200 Years of the Population Debate (1998), Challenging Australian History: Discovering New Narratives (2000) and An Inventive Magic Donald Friend and his Diaries (2001).

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From the Bush to Beyond

A central issue for the Library over the past 100 years has been the geographical isolation of Canberra from much of Australia. The country’s vast distances have denied many Australians the opportunity of visiting the Library. In recent years, however, new developments in technology have seen the Library generate more and more national services, facilitating collaboration between libraries and cultural institutions and through this, providing the nation beyond Canberra with access to the Library’s collections. Over the past 30 years innovative technologies have advanced the Library's commitment to service the research needs of the nation.

Computer-connected or online technologies have been used by the Library since the mid-1970s, when it first began looking at overseas models for an online cataloguing system. By 1981 the Library was ready to launch the Australian Bibliographical Network (ABN), an online system connecting libraries computerised catalogues around Australia to the newly formed National Bibliographic Database (NBD) set up at the National Library.

For researchers and scholars the benefits from the creation of the ABN and NBD have been enormous. A shared bibliographic database, or ‘union catalogue’, has meant that people can access library holdings without travelling to the Library. Shared resources and fast and effective methods of communicating between libraries have also sped up the process of inter-library loans. By 1985, 90 Australian libraries were using the National Library's Australian Bibliographic Network to locate items from the National Bibliographic Database for inter-library loan. By 1999, over 1100 libraries were using the service. Later that year, however, the Australian Bibliographic Network was replaced by Kinetica, a more sophisticated and interactive system, that enables libraries to contribute their own cataloguing details through Kinetica to the National Bibliographic Database.

Max Dupain (1911–1992)
National Library of Australia Catalogue/Bibliography Room 1970s
photograph
Pictorial Collection

Photographer, National Library of Australia
Producing catalogue cards for the National Library of Australia Catalogue c.1960s
Pictorial Collection

Photographer, National Library of Australia
Fancom M200 computer installed in the Library in 1984 to support ABN operations
Pictorial Collection

Photographer, National Library of Australia
OPAC (Online Public Access Catalogue) terminals, Main Reading Room
Pictorial Collection

The Library has been responsible for the creation of other information services targeted at specific industries. For example in 1976 the National Library, with the Department of Health, introduced an Australian system of access to the American medical database Medline. Before the introduction of Medline, the Library had relied upon telephoning America for medical information. The new service saw enquiries made on a dial-up telephone service to a database, 24 hours a day. The service was an invaluable tool for doctors, pharmacists and health workers in its day, however, by the early 1990s increased public use of the Internet had made the telephone service redundant. It closed down in 1993.

In the same year that Medline became available, 1976, the Australian Public Affairs Information Service (APAIS) went online. The print version of APAIS originated in 1945 and was the oldest indexing service of Australian social sciences and humanities serials. In 2001 the last printed version of APAIS was produced.

By 1994 the Library was in a position to begin offering its services to Australia and the world over the Internet through the building of its first site on the  World Wide Web. The National Library’s web site went ‘live’ in May 1995 providing an important point from which online visitors could find information about most of the Library’s services. The Library’s web site also hosted a number of government web sites, for example the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s web site, the Director of Public Prosecution’s web site and the Office for the Status of Women’s web site.

A selection of National Library bibliographic products in print and microfiche form now available online

In 1996 the Australian National Chinese, Japanese and Korean (CJK) Service was implemented. Managed by the National Library, the service provides a shared online catalogue of Chinese, Japanese and Korean material held in Australian libraries, with full support for the input and displays of East Asian scripts. By 2001, 22 libraries were members.

In 1998 the National Library launched the Australian Library Gateway, a free web-based directory providing access to 5400 Australian libraries as well as paths to libraries outside Australia.  

The Internet, however, has not only enabled the Library to open up its collections to the nation and the world but has also provided the technology to ensure the preservation of the collections. In 1996 the PANDORA project was established to archive copies of Australian digital publications without print equivalents. In 1996 Images I, the digital representation of items from the Pictorial Collection, was launched. The Library was now able to make digital copies of items in its collections and so ensure their preservation electronically.

The introduction of PictureAustralia in September 2000 provided access to half a million digitised images from major Australian institutions, including the Australian War Memorial, the National Library of Australia, and the State Libraries of New South Wales, Tasmania and Victoria.

National Library of Australia, Australian Libraries Gateway Web site 2001

National Library of Australia, Pandora Archive Web site 2001

National Library of Australia, Picture Australia Web site 2001

In 1999 the Library produced its first electronic publication, the widely acclaimed CD-ROM Endeavour: Captain Cook’s Journal 1768–1771, introducing yet another medium for the dissemination of stories from the National Library’s Collection. Electronic publications and exhibitions, experimenting with and incorporating new technologies, continue to be produced for the World Wide Web, interpreting the Library’s Collection and making it available in remote areas.

Keeping in mind the broad range of important functions and services the National Library has offered and continues to provide, the future directions of the Library are many and varied. One very important challenge is that of technological innovation:

to capitalise on the opportunities offered in this new environment to ensure that the National Library continues to serve the nation and provide access to the information resources of the world.

Directions for 2000–2002, National Library of Australia

Some of the different ways the Library plans to continue its brilliant record of information and collection access and service across Australia will be through the integration of the services now available. Through the National Library’s web site, an online visitor will, in the not too distant future, be able to search for a subject across a range of online services and view a related digitised image or manuscript, order a service or view and learn from an online exhibition.

National Library of Australia card catalogue and online catalogue system

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Housing the Collections

Australian Federal Parliament, Melbourne

Following its establishment in Melbourne, the first 20 years of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library saw the rapid growth of non-parliamentary, as well as parliamentary material. The arrival of the Petherick Collection in 1909 and the subsequent establishment of an Australian Collections section, heralded a storage problem that would continue to plague the Library for the next 50 years.

Federal Parliament House Melbourne c.1900
photograph
Pictorial Collection

Interior Parliamentary Library, Parliament House Melbourne pre–1927
photograph
Pictorial Collection

Parliament House, Canberra

Kenneth Binns succeeded Arthur Wadsworth as Parliamentary Librarian when the Library moved to Canberra. In 1928, on the eve of the Great Depression, he had a staff of 12 and two typewriters with which to serve the needs of Commonwealth parliamentarians, 7000 Canberra citizens and the occasional interstate visitor.

With the move to Canberra the need to support politicians and staff increased. At the same time the National Library's collection had been steadily growing and problems of collection storage space continued to afflict the Library.

The Commonwealth Parliamentary Library was positioned in a central location off Kings Hall.

William J. Mildenhall
Parliament House under construction 1920
photograph
Pictorial Collection

Steps of Parliament House, books in packing cases behind 1927
photograph
Pictorial Collection
(Kenneth Binns far right, Harold White centre)

William James Mildenhall (1891-)
Arrival of National Library Books at Parliament House on a White Truck
Series A3560
Item Number 2644
National Archives of Australia

William James Mildenhall (1891-)
Parliamentary Library
Series A3560
Item number 3178
National Archives of Australia

William James Mildenhall (1891-)
Parliamentary Library, Parliament House
Series A3560
Item number 7166
National Archives of Australia

R. C. Strangman
Parliament House, Canberra 1940s
photograph
Pictorial Collection

Albert R. Peters (d.1969)
Parliament House c.1945
hand-coloured photograph
Commonwealth Parliamentary Library Collection

Kings Avenue, Canberra

E.H. Henderson, the Chief Commonwealth Architect, drew up the plans for the first Commonwealth National Library building in collaboration with Kenneth Binns. His design, described as dignified and appropriate at the ceremony to lay the foundation stones, was for a building that would serve at once as a national library, a Parliamentary library, a public library and a lending library ministering to the needs of the (local) citizens … a reference library for students … and a research library. Henderson’s vision was never fully realised due to economic constraints, and only one wing of the building was completed.

Edward Herbert Henderson (1886–1939)
Proposed National Library, Canberra c.1934
drawing: pencil and crayon; 17.5 x 42 cm
Pictorial Collection PIC R5

Laying One of the Two Foundation Stones for the Kings Avenue Building by Sir Isaac Isaacs 1934
photograph
Pictorial Collection

L.J. Dwyer (fl.1932–1959)
Laying One of the Two Foundation Stones for the Kings Avenue Building by John Masefield 1934
photograph
Dwyer Collection
Pictorial Collection

It was opened to the public in 1935 with a great deal of local rejoicing. Formerly, the Canberra public had borrowed books from the basement of Parliament House on Saturday mornings. The wider Australian community however, was less impressed and the Melbourne Herald reported 'the erection at Canberra of immense institutions—the latest being a palatial library at a cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds' Kenneth Binns responded with the advice that the full cost was £13 000.

The new building finally seemed to offer a solution to the Library's storage problems. However, within a few years the government had reclaimed the building for its public service and the grand dreams of Kenneth Binns to extend the building were dashed.

Kings Avenue Building 1930s
photograph
Pictorial Collection

Main Reading Room, Kings Avenue building 1940s
photograph
Pictorial Collection

Larry Lake remembers the poor conditions in which much of the Collection was stored:

We’d taken up accommodation in the morgue, in the old hospital, we had the film division in the nurse’s quarters, we had large collections in the laundry, the old laundry, we had—the resident doctor’s cottage, I think it might have been, was absolutely full of newspapers. When I say full of newspapers, there weren’t racks to put them on, they were just bound volumes of newspapers piled on top of one another. You went in the front door and came into a little corridor, you could just squeeze down one side of it, the other side was just a wall of books, and you’d come to a door into a room, you could just open the door and were confronted with a mass of books. There was room at the top, between the ceiling and the top book, just to worm your way along like a lizard.

Larry Lake Oral History, 1967

Canberra Storage

From the late 1930s through to the late 1960s the Library's collections were housed in numerous annexes, huts, temporary and government buildings and basements around Canberra and Queanbeyan.

Canberra Public Library Service, Mobile Service 1950s
photograph
Pictorial Collection

Film Branch–Old Acton Hospital 1950s
photograph
Pictorial Collection

Kingston Branch 7 July 1967
photograph
Pictorial Collection

Current Building, Parkes Canberra

Sir William Holford recommended a national library as one of three major buildings in a ‘parliamentary triangle’ in his 1957 report on the development of Canberra. Harold White, Kenneth Binns' successor as Parliamentary Librarian, rejoiced that the library would now have symbolic significance in a country long devoted to Parliament and the law, but only more recently convinced of the need for research and inquiry to support our national growth.’

In 1966 Sir Robert Menzies delivered the speech to mark the occasion of the laying of the foundation stone (view film) and in 1968 Prime Minister John Gorton opened the new National Library building. Designed by Walter Bunning, the Parthenon-like building was described by the National Librarian Harold White as ‘like the Promised Land after 40 years in the wilderness.

National Library of Australia Building under construction February 1966
photograph
Pictorial Collection

National Library of Australia Building under construction June 1966
photograph
Pictorial Collection

Setting the Foundation Stone  31 March 1966
photograph
Pictorial Collection
(note protestors)

Opening of the New Building, Henry Moore Sculpture 1968
photograph
Pictorial Collection
(Harold White in the white suit)

Opening of the National Library Australia 1968
photograph
Pictorial Collection

Damien McDonald
National Library of Australia 2001
photograph
National Library of Australia Collection

Warehouses, Hume Canberra

As the Library continues to fulfil its charter as a research library of world standing it also continues to grow. Today, the Library houses approximately six million items, of which two and a half million are books. The remainder of the material consists of serials, manuscripts, music scores, paintings, posters, drawings, prints, photographs, maps, oral history recordings, ephemera, as well as electronic documents. These items are housed in the Library itself or in its humidity controlled warehouse in Hume.

Loui Seselja
National Library of Australia's Hume Warehouse, exterior 2001
photograph
National Library of Australia

Loui Seselja
National Library of Australia's Hume Warehouse, interior 2001
photograph
National Library of Australia

Loui Seselja
National Library of Australia's Hume Warehouse, interior 2001
photograph
National Library of Australia

Loui Seselja
National Library of Australia's Hume Warehouse, interior 2001
photograph
National Library of Australia

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