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Opening Plenary, Australian Library and Information Association Biennial Conference, Melbourne, 6-11 October 1996


Address by Warren Horton, Director-General, National Library of Australia, Friday, 8 October 1996 at the Australian Library and Information Association Biennial Conference, World Congress Centre, Melbourne.

I appreciate the honour that the Association has done me in inviting me to speak first at this ALIA Biennial Conference. The Conference celebrates 100 years since the first Australasian Library Conference, held in Melbourne from 21-24 April, 1896. That meeting can be argued to be the first sensible date to commemorate for the foundation of our profession, and ALIA has shown a splendid commitment to history in holding the 1996 conference in Melbourne to celebrate this first Australasian gathering.

The instructions given to me concerning this speech were generous but sparse. I was asked to "look backwards while looking forwards", noting also that the conference theme was "Reading the future". It is of course of no small significance that the Association has invited a professional librarian to speak first at our biennial conference, a most unusual practice in recent times. I assume it is intended as a compliment to a vigorous and proud profession, and that the invitation to me as this first speaker was based not only on my position, but my long term involvement in the profession.

I joined the State Library of New South Wales as a junior attendant on 25 March, 1957, and have worked continuously in Australian libraries since that date. Indeed, I have been fortunate in my career to have worked in the three largest public sector libraries in Australia, being the State Library of New South Wales where I worked from 1957-1981, the State Library of Victoria from 1981-1985, and the National Library of Australia since then. While some other people have worked in at least two of those libraries, the history is so well known that I think it beyond doubt I am the only person to have worked in all three.

I have been a member of what is now the Australian Library and Information Association for nearly 40 years. I have been fond of saying that I joined both the State Library of New South Wales and the then Library Association of Australia on 25 March, 1957, and indeed have recounted poetic versions of being marched along the corridor from the personnel office to Room 32 on the first floor of the State Library building, where the Library Association of Australia office was then housed, for instant enrolment as a member. Alas, there is nothing like checking the facts to ruin a good story! I asked Carolyn Cherrett in the ALIA National Office in Canberra a few weeks ago to verify my memories, and discovered that I did not apply for LAA membership until 1 May 1957. I am unclear why it took me 5 weeks to make up my mind about joining ALIA, which might well have been waiting for my first pay to afford the membership fee, but continuous membership since then has been a source of great professional satisfaction and stimulation to me. While I have given some service to ALIA in the last 39½ years, it has given me far more back and I am deeply grateful for this professional enrichment.

In thinking about this address I decided I wanted to say something about the history of the profession, in terms of several significant meetings including the 1896 Australasian Library Conference, and the values and issues those attending the selected meetings were dealing with. I then want to talk about the profession as it stands today, and make some attempt to "read the future". Librarianship has changed profoundly during my career, but I know much of the earlier days from professional contacts with senior professionals whom I met early in my career. One of the great advantages of working in the State Library of New South Wales when I did was that it was the great training ground for Australian librarianship, with a senior staff committed to their craft and with very strong principles and values. I suppose I could argue confidently that my detailed knowledge goes back some 60 years, when I take into account the conversations I have had with people such as Wilma Radford, Jean Arnot, Gordon Richardson, and other famous figures about their careers dating from the 1940s or earlier. And, indeed, I can remember hearing Billy Ifould talking about his career, and he was appointed Principal Librarian of the then Public Library of New South Wales in 1912.

I suppose what this has taught me is that one needs to be very wary about attempting to read the future broadly, especially in terms of technological and other such developments. It was for example only in 1956, the year before I entered librarianship, that the first comprehensive statement was published on the possible implications of automation in libraries. The introductory essay to Library Trends, October 1956 on the theme "Mechanisation in libraries" began with the words "this issue of Library Trends is an attempt to bring together for the first time in the one place information on the application of machines to the performance of library operations and techniques."

It is a beguiling thought, I am sure, for all of us speaking at this conference, that librarians in 2096 will no doubt stand in this or another location in Melbourne at a bicentennial gathering, and talk about what we had to say in this centennial conference. But I doubt if any predictions we make this week on technological or similar developments are likely to then be of considerable interest or much accuracy. After looking at the overall balance of the programme, and noting what Charles Landry and others are speaking about, what I want to talk about today is the profession, values, and the place of librarianship in Australian cultural and intellectual life.

The Library Association of Australasia, the first library association in this region of the world, was formed on 24 April, 1896 at the conclusion of the first Australasian Library Conference I have already referred to. The term "Australasian" reflected intent rather than the outcome, since there were no New Zealand delegates at the Conference. There were 4 delegates from NSW, 2 from Queensland, 4 from South Australia, 2 from Tasmania and 73 from Victoria, perhaps reflecting travel realities of the time as much as the initiative of the Trustees of the Public Library of Victoria in mounting this conference. E. La Touche Armstrong, a predecessor to Helen Tait and me in the position now titled State Librarian of Victoria, was secretary of the organising committee.

And what an interesting conference it was, and what lessons for us now. It was a hazy and dull day, with a maximum temperature of 60 degrees Fahrenheit, when the Conference opened on the evening of 21 April, with a Conversazione in the National Gallery , in the building shared with the Public Library. The Governor and the Chief Justice, Patron and President of the Conference respectively, and 600 of the great and good of Melbourne were present. Such a gathering would be most unusual at any similar conference in Australasia nowadays, and says much about the high mindedness of the "Marvellous Melbourne" cultural leadership, and their very serious aspirations for library service. The Age report of that day's gathering refers to the Chairman of the Trustees of the Public Library commenting on the importance of the deliberations for the history of Australasia and "in intensifying federal sentiment". The Chief Justice referred to the "spread of general education and the ever increasing desire, not only for learning and more light, but variety and amusement in literature..."

Victorians in the 1890's were of course very conscious of the splendid development of the Public Library of Victoria, founded in 1854 and the oldest continuous library in Australia. The sense of public purpose brought to that famous Library is exemplified in the words of the new Governor, Sir Charles Hotham, one of the most famous quotations in Australian library history, when laying the foundation stone of the Library during the afternoon of 3 July, 1854. Sir Charles had performed the same ceremony at the new University of Melbourne at noon, and at the Public Library ceremony said:

I do not know which is the more important event of today: whether the laying of the foundation stone of the first Library or the ceremony at the University should be first consideration, but I consider the Library is the most important for the people.... I tell you as your friend and fellow colonist that here you will find society that will draw you away from other temptations, and I hope that the Library will contain books of all languages and descriptions, so that you may never say that you are at a loss for references or information on any subject.

The professional programme resembled in many ways what you might find on similar programmes today, including an opening paper on Cataloguing by H. C. L. Anderson, after whom our premier award for a professional librarian is named, which according to The Age addressed a subject which "under the handling of Mr. Anderson, proved more interesting than its title might suggest." But there were other papers on libraries from the readers' point of view; the book trade in Australia; the librarian and his work, (all delegates being of course male); fiction in public libraries, and the hardy chestnut of the Dewey Decimal Classification. The session on 23 April almost developed into a public brawl over the Sunday Opening question, following a paper by Hugh Wright of the Public Library of New South Wales on experience since the 1878 decision to open on Sundays from 2.00 pm-6.00 pm, still incidentally the same Sunday opening hours when I first worked a Sunday shift there in 1957. Wright's conclusion was that "Sunday opening of the library was an important factor in the welfare of the community, being a boon to many workers, although labourers preferred a stroll through the museum or a trip down the harbour. He found that the classes of books most read on the Sunday were on astronomy, travel, morals and Socialism."

Victorian delegates were not so enthused by the spread of Sunday opening hours elsewhere in Australia, and the report of the debate in The Age extends over fifteen column inches. The quite splendid rhetoric includes the Rev. Dr. Rentoul's assertion that "The secularising of Sunday would blunt the religious conscience of the nation. If the opening of the library could stand by itself it would be a small thing, but it would be only the beginning of a movement to encroach on the day of rest. Work would be entailed and home life would be jeopardised." A vote on the question was eventually called for but not allowed.

The final act of the Conference was to establish a Library Association of Australasia, with its object "to unite all persons engaged or interested in library work, in order to obtain their co-operation in all matters connected with library management, legislation and improvement." It is interested to note that this Object has the same intent as our present Association in encouraging involvement by all working in or interested in libraries, and that the Constitution and debate addressed issues such as the balance of national and local affairs, what if any involvement should be encouraged for those occupying flagship positions, and the need for appropriate professional training, which have dominated much of the debate in the succeeding associations for the next 100 years.

The Library Association of Australasia failed by 1902, although it was never formally dissolved. Michael Talbot has written extensively about it and its leaders. They were indeed a very educated and serious group of librarians. The Library Record of Australasia in the 1901 issues ran a series of articles on the subject of some books that should be in every general library collection. Part II in the December 1901 issue, after recommending Kipling's Barrack-room Ballads and Bullen's Lyrics from the song books of the Elizabethan age, had this to say about Homer:

"I think it should be A.S. Way's. If his rugged Saxon hexametre does not suggest the mellifluous Greek measure, it at least gives an archaic atmosphere, and is very readable, without the insipidity that is almost inseparable from translations."

If you look carefully at the photograph of the 1900 conference, you will also note three women present in the group. One of the striking features of the Association was its success in gaining wide publicity for the interests of librarianship, with its conferences normally heavily reported in the metropolitan newspapers of whichever capital city it was meeting in.

This next photograph is of delegates at the first conference of the Australian Institute of Librarians, which met in Canberra on 20 August 1937. This was the third attempt at founding a national association of librarianship in Australia, the AIL being the forerunner of the present Association founded in 1949. I remember some of us studying this photograph carefully when we were young librarians in the State Library of NSW, where it was housed in the Small Picture File. We once tried to identify all the delegates, but some of the younger ones seemed to have been lost in the mists of time or indeed in World War II. I suppose that, if we had had the good sense at the time, we could have asked people such as Jean Arnot to work through the identities for us. Some names are obvious, including the still fairly young Harold White and John Metcalfe. At least a third of the delegates to this 1937 conference were women, with Ellinor Archer, whom another of our premier awards is named after, becoming President of the AIL in 1948-49.

Jean Whyte has written on the establishment of the AIL, including the politics behind the decision to establish an institute in which professional librarians, who wanted to develop the profession of librarianship in Australia by establishing a system of training for librarianship were very much in control. The AIL was also established soon after the seminal Munn-Pitt Report and as Australia began to emerge from the Great Depression. The report of its inaugural meeting in the Canberra Times on 21 August 1937 emphasises these thrusts. Mr Salter Davies, Chairman of the library committee of the Carnegie Trust in Great Britain, appealed for the Institute to promote the broadest ambitions. "I believe you have a great work to do in improving the standard of librarianship here. In your endeavours to do that you will have to consider such questions as salaries. That is a vital matter, but I am sure you will accomplish your ends best if you see that the ends you pursue are not too greatly concentrated on those lesser matters but fix your eyes upon the greater matter - which includes the lesser ones - of improving the standard of the library profession." Dr Battye of Western Australia fame emphasised that "we should not look to immediate advantage from it for the person in it. The crying need in Australia today is the creation of a library atmosphere and spirit among the people of Australia ... . The Institute of Librarians ought to primarily direct itself towards educating the community in the use of libraries, knowledge of books, love of reading and a higher standard of culture." Grand aspirations indeed, as in most of the moves to form library associations in Australia over the last 100 years.

The last photograph which I am showing you today was taken on the front steps of the then Public Library of New South Wales, on the afternoon of the last day of the "Great Stocktake" of that Library in January 1958. We have a practice in this profession of lining up for group photographs on significant occasions. This photograph shows all of the staff working in the Public Library building and involved in that stocktake, including a young Warren Horton in his first year of library employment. But what it really shows is the nature of library employment in the large libraries of the time, in which there was little career mobility and with people giving lengthy and often distinguished service to the one institution. This photograph for example includes in the front row alone John Metcalfe, who worked in the Library from 1923 - 1959; Gordon Richardson, who worked there from 1934 - 1973; Wima Radford, employed from 1932 - 1962; and Jean Arnot, whose whole working life was devoted to the Public Library. Chief executives almost invariably rose through the organisations, with two State Librarians and three Deputy State Librarians of that Library in this one photograph, and another State Librarian, Russell Doust, on the staff also but seconded to a teachers college library at the time.

I turn now to look at how our present association and professional practices match those grand aspirations which I earlier referred to, and to attempt to "read the future" in a range of specific areas.

Let us start with this Association itself, since we are honouring the formation of the Library Association of Australasia 100 years ago. Reading again in the last few months about the history of our profession has made me ponder on the health of the Association, and other bodies such as the Australian Council of Libraries and Information Services (ACLIS) and the various sectoral groupings whose primary purpose is to promote librarianship in Australia. It can on the one hand be argued that they are to a greater or lesser degree relatively successful, and our Association celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1987 in Canberra in fine style and with considerable exuberance. Having said this, we surely have to consider if we cannot do better, and perhaps whatever else we do increase the long term vitality and relevance of our cross-sectoral organisations.

In 1984-1986 I chaired the Corporate Plan and Review Committee (CPRC) of the then Library Association of Australia, the other members being Jenny Adams, the then Executive Director and Anne Hazell who is in this audience. I want to quote two sections from that report. The first said that "there is evidence that the profession does not, at present, hold itself in high esteem. The Association must take the lead in encouraging professional pride and the importance of LAA membership for professional advancement must be maximised ...". The second is the opening sentences from the chapter titled "membership and fees" in that report, which said "the majority of people graduating from librarian or library technician courses in Australia do not join the Association while studying or upon leaving educational institutions and entering the workforce. Of those who do join the Association as students or within the first year of employment the majority again leave within three years. This membership problem is the most critical facing the Association. Not only the financial health but also the political and professional viability of the Association depend upon its being truly representative of the profession in this country. If a key benchmark is its ability to attract the majority of the younger profession as members then the Association has failed."

Notwithstanding many significant accomplishments by the Association in the last decade, these comments are still largely accurate. I would argue that that the Australian Council of Libraries and Information Services (ACLIS) also has some significant long term structural problems, which could threaten its future. Notwithstanding burgeoning membership for ACLIS since its formation in 1988, it still remain critically dependent upon National Library of Australia funding support for its financial viability, and indeed would almost certainly collapse if that financial support were withdrawn. Significant segments of the ACLIS membership have made it very clear in recent years that they would not be prepared to increase the present low subscription rates, which are predicated upon continuing National Library funding support. The fact that the peak organisation representing libraries is financially dependent for its existence for funding support from the National Library, a practice begun in 1956 when the Australian Advisory Council on Bibliographical Services (AACOBS) was founded and the library industry was so small in comparison to today, is hardly a signal of confidence by Australian libraries in the vitality of their own peak organisations. And I suspect much of the membership support in recent years to be based upon the success of the ACLIS copyright initiatives, which is commendable but not necessarily a sign of long term support for the organisation itself.

Like many others in the profession I applaud the decision of ALIA and ACLIS to mount a strategic review of library and information industry coordination and representation options in the 21st century. The intent of this proposal is to undertake a simply structured but very broad ranging strategic review of the needs of the industry for representation and coordination in the future. This review, if done effectively, could be a once in a generation opportunity for major change if that is what we decide we want.

I have of course to declare an interest in this review, before making any further comment. The two Presidents of ALIA and ACLIS invited the National Library of Australia to be the third party and also contribute funds to this review, and my Council under its powers to encourage cooperation in library matters in Australia and elsewhere has eagerly accepted the invitation. I have also accepted an invitation, but as an individual, to serve as the third person with the two Presidents on the Steering Committee for the exercise. I do not want therefore to declare any personal point of view at a time when the review is still to be started, but I think it is legitimate to say that a key issue needing careful exploration has to be whether it is a desirable option to try and consolidate most if not all cross-sectoral bodies in the Australian library community into one organisation.

I think most people in this audience would accept that we have major problems in being listened to and understood by governments and other bodies whom we wish to influence, because of the plethora of voices through which we often speak. A constant and diverting part of my career since moving to Canberra in 1985, and previously when working with State governments, has been explaining to Ministers and bureaucrats the difference between the various alphabetical organisations representing the library community, and why on occasion they speak with one voice but with quite differing tongues. It concerns me also when I note the somewhat byzantine working relationships between the key cross-sectoral organisations which seem necessary on occasion in common activities of importance to, and I believe we have too few active workers to dilute their energies across a number of organisations if this can be avoided.

It is of course curious for me to be standing here saying this, since it is opposed to what I have been consistently saying for much of my career and certainly since I reached a senior position and became very active professionally in the early 1970s. Perhaps I was too much influenced by history, and it has certainly been salutary for me to have worked in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra and seen the quite different perspectives on history and the library politics in those three major professional centres. I have always seen a very strong distinction between individual principles and institutional views, such as those surrounding the emotive word "free" in the debates of the last 20 years, which convinced me that no one peak organisation could easily represent the views of both individuals and institutions. But I now believe it could be done and done well. Whether it should be done is of course another thing, but I at least hope the idea can be explored constructively and with goodwill as part of this major review.

There are five reasons why I have had this change of heart. The first is that I sense that many people active in the profession are tired of the difficulties which our plethora of organisations so often creates. The second is that, as we head into much harder long term economic circumstances for most libraries, I sense again a willingness to rebalance our organisations. The third is the likely emergence of much stronger sectoral groupings, as indeed has happened with the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) in recent years, which encourages thought about amalgamation of our cross-sectoral organisations. The fourth is that we are in the middle of another generational change in national leadership in the profession, with many long term players, including me, certain to vacate their positions by the end of the century. This is an ideal opportunity to look again at these issues in the national interest.

The last reason, and an important one, is that in reading and brooding on the history of the profession during the last few months, while thinking about this paper, I have again been impressed by the broadness of vision which many of our professional predecessors brought to their labours. This is particularly so in the case of the 1896 Australasian Library Conference, and the deliberations of the members of the fledgling library association of Australasia over the next six years. They had a very clear view of the need for a united professional organisation covering both those working and interested in librarianship, and libraries themselves. I see no necessary reason, given considerable goodwill as I have said, why we could not reexamine this noble aspiration 100 years later. Certainly such a development, if welcomed by the broad majority of our profession, would be in my view very much to our long term advantage and something we would be proud to see commemorated 100 years from now. The terms of reference for the ALIA/ACLIS/NLA review mentioned above are of course hospitable to the involvement of other national library organisations if they so wish.

But whatever the outcomes of the review, I strongly believe that we must use it to our advantage so that over the next five years it generates a major revitalisation of professional life in Australia. It is unhealthy, and a cause of deep concern to me, that we have a profession in which the majority of younger members are not professionally active. It is also unhealthy that so relatively few senior leaders in our profession are widely professionally active. Our leaders have a responsibility to be exactly that - leaders, who inspire and motivate the younger members of the profession, who give generously of their time to such activities, and who are role models and exemplars of high professional worth. This is exactly what those great people such as Jean Arnot and Wilma Radford in the State Library of New South Wales in the 1950s, now names probably unknown to most in the audience but then figures of national significance, were to young librarians such as Hans Groenewegen and me. They had the highest professional values, gave generously of their time to junior staff, and were extremely professionally active. I have become very tired of the constant refrain from some of my senior colleagues in recent years that times are harder, the work responsibilities greater, and their options for professional involvement therefore very much diminished. I think this is nonsense. The times are perhaps more complex, but not necessarily harder than they were for many of those earlier national figures. It is also easier now to be professionally active, with telecommunications developments including email and our relative ease of travel compared to even 20 years ago. And it should be a key professional responsibility for all our leaders.

The last comment I want to make in terms of "reading the future" on our professional activities is that I believe that we have to rethink our attitudes towards cooperation, and working with, other like professions. This is a subject of deep interest to me, especially because of the lengthy debates we have been having in the National Library in recent years about the issue of convergence. We all believe that a broad Australian cultural industry has now emerged with profound implications for the profession and its attitudes to employment over the next few decades. These changes will also be further driven by continuing strong Commonwealth and State government intervention destroying traditional workplace understandings, and producing a far more flexible workplace environment. Phil Teece in a later paper argues that these changes are indeed the most profound since Federation. Its effects have of course been strikingly evident for some years at senior employment levels in the public sector, where it would be impossible now, and quite rightly in my view, for positions to be advertised with obligatory professional criteria attached to them. (Interestingly, notwithstanding the many argued workplace reforms in recent years in New Zealand, the position of National Library of New Zealand has just been advertised in the clear expectation that only a professionally qualified librarian could be appointed to it.)

The Association has been fairly forward looking in its attitude to these developments, notably in the 1991 Statement on Senior Library Appointments. This says that "the Association recognises that applicants for senior management positions in library and information services require a combination of demonstrated leadership and managerial skills and experience, appropriate management training and overall career achievement. However ... [the Association] ... also believes that major library and information services operate in environments where their chief executive officers are advantaged by the possession of formal appropriate qualifications and career experience. The Association believes that senior members of the profession with such a combination of qualifications, skills and work experience are therefore best fitted to fill senior leadership positions in the nation's library and information service."

It interests me how few members of our profession seem to be aware that this statement exists, and of its potential significance. Certainly, it has not stopped the agitation, whenever senior positions are advertised as open for those with a wide range of qualifications and diverse career backgrounds, for the Association "do something" to ensure that a professionally qualified librarian is appointed. Interestingly, those agitating usually do not express any view except that we must have a professional appointed. They do not seem to care how long ago the qualification was acquired, what relevance the career experience and qualifications of others might have, nor what the strength of their leadership and management skills is. Nor do they ponder on the irony of us applauding the success of some of our leaders who have built on their professional skills and achieved career success in wider environments.

These attitudes must go, as they already are going at senior levels in public sector and higher education librarianship. The plain fact is that almost every senior position that has been advertised as open to appointment from outside the profession in the last fifteen years has been filled by a professional librarian. If we have confidence in our own profession, then there is no reason to assume that this record of success will alter, but we must move to apply the same principles at even the most junior professional levels. Librarianship is argued to be a wonderful qualification for a wide range of other employment opportunities in the information and cultural industries, and we must accept that there are many other qualifications which equally advantage people for employment in librarianship, especially in an age of convergence.

I said earlier that I am reluctant to predict the future, and the rate of change. But I have no doubt about the capacity of the Australian library profession to handle this change dynamically and effectively. Notwithstanding the economic restraint of the last decade, and almost certain further major funding cutbacks affecting many library services in the country, the recent record is one of a proud profession constantly re-inventing itself. History 100 years from now, at the bicentennial conference celebrating the 1896 Melbourne meeting and our gathering this week, will I am certain see this as a period of turbulence for libraries and library staff yet one of major achievement.

What does interest me particularly is the issue of values in this period of change. The library profession in Australia rests upon a bedrock of very solid and long term values. Some, especially those attached to the word "free" in public sector libraries have changed in recent years (to our advantage in this particular case in my view) but most remain constant.

This has been brought home to me very strongly recently when thinking about the implications of a position paper issued by the National Library last week on a possible "National Strategy for Provision of Access to Australian Electronic Publications". It is not my purpose today to debate the merits of this paper, nor indeed the particular strategies that it suggests. But reading it carefully, and thinking about its possible implications, reinforced my views on the importance of values to our profession, and the seamless way many of them will carry into the new electronic world the profession will be grappling with into the next century.

A colleague in the National Library remarked to me recently that, whatever other skills we have had, librarians around the world have been excellent in organising and codifying information sources. The continuing search for this excellence in an electronic publishing world, defined in this paper as one "resulting from an act of publishing in which information is encoded, accessed and made intelligible and accessible through the use of a computer ..." is still very value orientated and indeed still addresses many of the issues faced by our colleagues a century ago.

The paper argues that a key issue in guaranteeing long term access to Australian electronic publishing and digital documents is that of a redefinition of the concept of legal deposit embracing the new technologies. The vital part of any nation's heritage exists in the publications which document the accumulated knowledge, activities and achievements of its citizens in all fields of human endeavour. Legal deposit is the usual means by which library and collecting institutions ensure that this cultural heritage is preserved and survives for future use and study. The principle of legal deposit is established in international convention and national legislation and aims to ensure the survival of a nation's cultural material in libraries and archives. Electronic publications, particularly networked publications, are more vulnerable than printed items, and at greater risk of disappearance. They require the protection of legal deposit arrangements if they are to survive for future use.

In arguing a position on the extension of legal deposit, and broadened rights to allow libraries and other institutions to cover electronic materials, this National Library position paper sits in a continuum of debate on legal deposit by our profession going well back into the last century. The then Public Library of Melbourne was given legal deposit for print material by legislation in 1869; the then South Australian Institute in Adelaide in 1878; the then Free Public Library in Sydney in 1879; the Parliamentary Library in Queensland in 1887 and the then Victoria Public Library in Perth in 1895. The world may be changing around us profoundly, especially in terms of technology, but many of our national issues still sit firmly in the long history of our profession.

Copyright reform is of central importance to Australian librarianship, and would I think be identified by most in the room as probably the key strategic issue presently confronting Australian librarianship. Our profession has achieved much in recent years to establish and articulate a united and strong position on access issues, and notably the vital necessity to preserve the fair dealing principle in the emerging electronic world. In most countries, including Australia, the public have access to much of their intellectual and cultural documentary heritage through publicly funded libraries and archives, which I would argue act very much in the public interest in providing public access to this material. I strongly believe that in doing so they serve the interests also of publishers and creators, by promoting awareness of their work's existence, housing and preserving them, and indeed in some occasions physically safeguarding them for later exploitation by the copyright holder.

Because electronic publications, and especially networked information, can be copied with ease in a way that was never possible for print materials, we all understand the reluctance on the part of many creators and producers to allow public access to these materials in case their economic interests suffer through unreasonable copying. We, of course, believe that while recognising the legitimate rights of copyright holders our users must not be restricted or denied access for purposes of research and study ultimately in the public interest. But as a profession we are undoubtedly imperilled in this worthy ambition by the globalisation of information and the strength the new technologies give to those arguing for radical change in copyright legislation, which we believe inimical to our interests. The Commonwealth Government's Copyright Convergence Group in 1994 very neatly summed up the dilemma when it said:

"the challenge for copyright law in this new environment is to demonstrate that it can continue to effectively provide a just and acceptable balance between the varied interests of intellectual property right owners and the public interest in fair and reasonable access to a wide range of information".

What is again particularly interesting is that the values we argue remain constant, notwithstanding the changing circumstances of the copyright debate. I am old enough to have lived through the invention of the photocopier, and know that these values have dominated the debate for the last 40 years. I have little doubt that they will do so well into the next century, and continue to be of central importance to our profession.

A striking development in this position paper on electronic publications, however, is the strong argument for a changed world in terms of collaboration. It quite bluntly postulates a scenario in which Australian electronic publications can only be controlled, and long-term access guaranteed, through a highly cooperative process involving libraries, archives, producers and creators. The paper argues that such a process is the only possible way to address effective retention and access policies for the nation's intellectual heritage.

The most striking change in my career in the way libraries operate has been this move in recent years to the widest possible collaboration of libraries with creators of material, other information providers and those involved in the broadest sense in the cultural process. When I became State Librarian of Victoria in 1981 that library operated in a very tight network of Australian libraries, with its international involvement basically being only about issues of standards, and with no significant relationship with any other Victorian cultural agencies or interests. It did of course have close contacts with the National Museum of Victoria, but this was largely because we shared the same complex, with both institutions energetically campaigning to vacate it in favour of their neighbour!

I still remember vividly the astonishment, and indeed the strong resistance, to a proposal for a joint National Gallery of Victoria and State Library of Victoria Pictorial Exhibition in 1984. While experience differs across the range of libraries, I am now Chief Executive of a National Library which sees itself as a library but also a major Australian cultural agency in the broadest sense. My own views are more conservative than those of some of my colleagues in the National Library in judging the rate of change, but we all agree that convergence, and the emergence of a deep national understanding of Australian culture, have created profound change over the last five years in our relationships to other Australian cultural organisations and global access to information resources. Indeed, for the first time in my career we are now truly able to talk about effective access to the world's information.

It was interesting when reading the reports of the 1896 conference to place that meeting in the political and cultural context of the time. You will recall that I mentioned earlier the comment by the Chairman of the Trustees of the Melbourne Public Library, at the Conversazione on 21 April 1896, of the importance of libraries for the history of Australasia and "in intensifying federal sentiment". A strong trend through the deliberations of the earlier library conferences was the view that libraries were not only of high intellectual importance, but also central to the cultural life of the colonies and New Zealand. I believe this trend still runs strongly through our present deliberations over the future of Australian libraries.

Those of us who work for the Commonwealth Government have in recent years been very conscious of the development, supported by all political parties, of Australian cultural policies. The previous government in July 1992 appointed a panel of eminent Australians to advise on the formulation of a Commonwealth cultural policy. The following words from that panel's preamble to the Labor Government's Creative Nation cultural policy in 1994, which express views shared by all political parties, argue that democracy is the key to cultural value, and that Australian culture is of central importance to the nation:

"There has probably never been a better time than the present to re-assess our national cultural policy. Australia, like the rest of the world, is at a critical moment in its history. Here, as elsewhere, traditional values and ideologies are in flux and the speed of global economic and technological change has created doubt and cynicism about the ability of national governments to confront the future. What is distinctively Australian about our culture is under assault from homogenised international mass culture.
Ironically, our culture has never been more vital than it is now. At every level of society, Australians are engaged in cultural activities that are helping to re-invent the national identity, and most Australians would agree on the need to enhance and enrich our culture. ...
WHAT IS AUSTRALIAN CULTURE?
Culture arises from the community, even when the community may not be fully aware of it. It encompasses our entire mode of life, our ethics, our institutions, our manners and our routines, not only interpreting our world but shaping it."

All Australian libraries, but especially those in the public sector including the public library system, and our higher education and school libraries, have a strong role to play in the development of Australian culture. Perhaps more to the point, all have a very strong responsibility, but again especially those providing public access, for the defence of Australian culture in the broadest sense.

One of the ironies of the new technologies, and the present globalisation of information, is that it is opening up access to world information for Australians in the most extraordinary way, quite undreamt of for most of our careers for people of my generation, while at the same time very much threatening Australian culture.

I remember some years ago hearing a most disturbing presentation, by an Australian expert very involved in the development of broadcasting and television media in small Pacific nations, about the damaging impact of these developments upon indigenous cultures. She remarked that every time she looked at the coverage of a new satellite footprint across those nations, she also looked at a potential danger of struggling cultures being submerged by the impact of overseas media, and in particular American cultural values. I think of Australian culture as threatened in the same way, with the footprint of globalisation of information posing tremendous dangers to Australian information and culture in the broadest sense. This is a responsibility which the Australian library profession has to address aggressively, and I would be surprised if 100 years from now it is not reported as a major issue in the profession's history.

It is often argued that it is of central importance, because of declining economic resources, that the Australian library profession become more effective politically. An obvious example of this concern can be seen in the very wise decision in the mid-1980s to relocate the Association to Canberra. Some at the time argued this to be important because of the symbolism of a national association being located in the national capital, others more crudely but sensibly because of the major financial incentives then available for national associations to move to Canberra, and others because they believed it to be of key importance that the Association relate very effectively to the national Government. Certainly, it is much more effective in this regard now than a decade ago.

It is very important that the profession be politically effective, but I think it also important in the next few decades that we engage much more positively and broadly in the cultural life of the nation. Australian libraries are a highly cooperative network engaged in common purpose across all spheres of government and commerce, but I do not think it can be argued that our leaders are yet engaged broadly in the nation's cultural life, nor that there is any widespread community perception of the importance of library activities to the nation.

The purpose of this paper is not to talk about the National Library of Australia, but it is worth mentioning briefly that our advocacy campaign in mid-July 1996 about our collection policy redirections brought home to me graphically how little knowledge informed community leaders have about libraries. In one sense the debate was a storm in a teacup, since most of it was with a small group of Canberra academics with strong views on the historic role of the National Library and determined to maintain overseas print collections at historic levels. We set out quite deliberately, and with great success, to advocate our position, with a wide reach into major media outlets including the ABC, The Australian newspaper and Campus Review weekly.

But I realised yet again during this advocacy campaign how little public knowledge there is, including disturbingly among informed groups in the community whom we see as natural allies, about the role and importance of the Australian library system. I think it is of fundamental importance that we as a profession aggressively address this issue as we head into the next century, because we are very exposed in terms of the lack of a broad and articulated base of community support.

And there are many threats facing us through the next decade. The current debate over the charter and priorities of the ABC, arguably the most loved cultural institution in the nation, has shaken many people in the profession, since many public sector libraries operate on not dissimilar philosophical premises concerning service and community obligations. I have been thinking much lately about the long term pressure public sector libraries might well face, since these are the libraries I am most familiar with.

The State Libraries were mostly established in the colonial period before Federation, and the National Library traces its history from just after Federation. They are part of the cultural fabric of the nation. But is it not possible for example that there will be strong questioning of the fundamental assumption that such libraries are basically state supported, rather than being state assisted with strong dependence on products and commercial services for survival? Who in the audience would a decade ago have envisaged serious discussion of state orchestras being cut loose from federal funding, and left to survive or not according to public demand? How seriously are we yet, as a profession, discussing the major implications of changed government philosophies affecting the higher education system, or the changes in the Victorian public library system of recent years?

It can of course be argued that many of these pressures have been beneficial, if for no other reason than that they force library leaders to concentrate their minds wonderfully on what are the real priorities. But there is still very little widespread debate on key philosophical issues we will have to address in the the next decade. In addition to the library as a library, and now for many also a cultural institution, what are the implications of thinking of ourselves in the public sector for example as much more a business? What did we think of Alison Crook's strong views of these issues while she was leader in the State Library of New South Wales, and since I know there were strongly divided opinions about her major initiatives why have we not had a vigorous public debate on the issues? The impact of business ethics and business motivation upon fairly traditional library values and ethics has been little explored so far. What happens when we much more strongly think of 'clients and customers' rather than 'rights of the public', and when other pressures really start to impact on the values inherent in terms such as 'the right to know' and 'free access to information'?

Almost every debate on questions such as this which I have heard in recent years has ended up as an emotional defence of historic values, with a total reluctance to accept the world has changed around us. But the world has so changed, and I think the profession has to rigorously debate what business libraries are in. Not what libraries do, but what business are we in, and what decisions flow from that. And we have to be more open in that debate, more intellectually rigorous, and more prepared to listen to and respect dissenting voices from the majority. We have to create a climate in which John Levett is embarrassed with the richness and intellectual vigour of the polemics sent to him for publication in the Australian Library Journal, rather than pleading for articles from the librarians of Australia. And we have to stop being so gentle and polite, and to accept that strong argument and major intellectual debate is central to a vigorous profession.

My final comment is that I also realised, in reading material about the 1890s and 1930s and across other key dates in the Australian professional history which I thought of bringing into this speech, how keenly our forebears sought to involve themselves in the international profession. They felt Australian developments to be of importance and worthy of world notice. Notwithstanding the great problems of travel until fairly recently they worked hard to participate in international activities, and some key figures published widely overseas. We seem to have largely lost this habit of publishing in the profession's international literature in the last 20 years. Robert Wedgeworth (http://www.library.uiuc.edu/faculty/rwedge.htm), the President of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), who is attending this conference, has often remarked to me that he was well informed and influenced by the views of leading Australian librarians such as Harrison Bryan and Dietrich Borchardt in the 1970s and early 1980s, but that Australians then seemed to stop publishing. I think this is true, but the development of the Internet in recent years now offers a new opportunity for our professional developments of importance to be very widely known overseas.

The Australian library profession has much to share with the world in a whole range of areas, including for example preservation, public library development, automation and policy development for the emerging electronic world around us. We owe it to the world to have these developments better known. There is a saying about people "punching below their weight", and I believe the Australian profession is very much doing this in terms of its international responsibilities. Although we have a splendid track record in recent decades of support to the development of Asian and Pacific library services, we should have a far higher profile internationally and be contributing much more to key international developments.

In thinking about how to end this speech I had assumed I would use another quotation from the 1896 Conference. But then a friend very interested in libraries, with whom I was discussing our conference being held this week, remarked that that we may well be a profession but also seemed gloriously tribal by nature and in what we were celebrating.

And this is so. Tribalism embraces a community of customs and traditions, and fierce respect for tribal loyalties, and some suspicion of outsiders, and passion for shared values and crafts, and memories, and celebrating milestones in the tribal history.

What we are doing this week is not only celebrating the Conference 100 years ago, but everything that has flowed from it for libraries and librarianship, and the work of all our colleagues in the national interest over those 100 years. And there will be much talk, not only from me, about values and tradition, because they underpin everything we do and will flow on through the next 100 years.

So I am very comfortable with this concept of tribalism. As I said at the start of this speech, I will have been a member of this tribe for 40 years next March. Like so many others with whom I have worked through the years I count this as a privilege. I want to thank you for this, and the opportunity to talk about it today.

Selected Images from the Presentation

  • Public Library, Melbourne (Photo: Caire, Nicholas c1880-1900)
  • Bourke Street, Melbourne (Photo: Caire, Nicholas c1880-1900)
  • Collins Street, Melbourne (Photo: Caire, Nicholas c1880-1900)
  • Collins Street, Melbourne (Photo: Caire, Nicholas c1880-1900)
  • Parliament House, Melbourne (Photo: Caire, Nicholas c1880-1900)
  • New Garden, Yarra Bank (Photo: Caire, Nicholas c1880-1900)
  • Cover Page: Account of the Proceedings of the 1st Australasian Library Conference, 1896
  • Public Library of Victoria (Photo: J.W. Lindt 1896)
  • Members and Associates of the Library Association of Australasia, 1900
  • Australian Institute of Librarians, 1937
  • Australian Institute of Librarians
Warren Horton, Director-General October 1996
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