National Library of Australia - Gateways>

ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 55 | February 2002


Peoplescape

Sir John Ferguson and Mrs Pauline Fanning were the National Library of Australia's nominations for the Peoplescape. The Peoplescape exhibition was open to the public from 25 November to 4 December 2001 and as the centenary year drew to a close, 5000 life-size figures representing ordinary Australians stood on the lawns over and around Parliament House. The Library's figures were designed by Jodie Ward.

Pauline Fanning worked for the National Library of Australia from 1936-1980, holding many positions in reader services, cataloguing and collection development. She generously shared her expertise with generations of scholars and researchers. Her approaches to writers, academics, politicians and other distinguished Australians resulted in acquisitions of important manuscripts, pictures and oral history for the Library's collections.

 
 
Pauline Fanning
 
Sir John Ferguson Mrs Fanning was particularly associated with the Library's great treasure, the Endeavour Journal of James Cook, taking it to Melbourne for the first Moomba festival in 1954 and showing it to the Queen during the Cook Bicentenary in 1970. Mrs Fanning still lives in Canberra.

Sir John Ferguson (1881-1969) was Australia's foremost bibliographer and his Bibliography of Australia (1784-1900) is regarded as the most comprehensive and authoritative bibliography of that period. However it was his work as a collector of Pacific voyages and early Australiana that established his relationship with the National Library of Australia. The Library maintained close ties with Sir John Ferguson for over 50 years and gradually acquired his massive collection of over 34 000 books, paintings and manuscripts relating to Australia's early history. The Ferguson collection contains many rare and unique items and together with the collections of Edward Augustus Petherick and Sir Rex Nan Kivell, forms the foundation of the Library's Australian Collection.

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Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: dthomas@nla.gov.au

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