ISSN 1443-0568 | no. 76 | August 2005
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Library Treasures to Tour
the Nation
Excitement is palpable at the National Library of Australia as work progresses on the preparation of the Library’s next landmark exhibition, National Treasures from Australia's Great Libraries. Under the auspices of the Council of Australian Libraries (CASL), Australia’s state and territory libraries are collaborating with the National Library to present an exhibition of some of their most valuable and unusual treasures. Because of the importance and cultural heritage value of these treasures, most have never before left their institutions, let alone toured to every capital city.
This exhibition, which builds on the remarkable success of the National Library’s 2001 Treasures from the World’s Great Libraries, will encourage Australians to see their libraries and their diverse collections in a new light. Essentially, it will celebrate our libraries’ roles in preserving and providing public access to documents and artifacts important to Australia’s life and culture. It will set out to tell the stories that encapsulate Australia’s history—some well known, others less so. Audiences will find the stories they expect, such as those of Captain Cook, Don Bradman, Nellie Melba and Henry Lawson, but they will also find little known stories of ‘ordinary’ Australians in extraordinary circumstances. They will be surprised by different slants on the life and work of the famous (such as William Bligh, portrayed as a navigator and observer of human nature par excellence) and delighted with the insights provided by the inclusion of contemporary stories (such as Shane Gould’s, as told through her 1972 Munich Olympics diary). The exhibition is organised under eight themes covering the period from pre-settlement to the present and includes diverse forms of library collection materials. While some themes, such as Under the Southern Cross; Heroes and Villains; War and Loss; and Settlement, Land and Nature are predominantly historical in focus, others are more varied. The themes of Hope and Hardship, Innovation and Industry, Culture, and National Obsessions provide opportunities to exhibit items as diverse as Mrs Macquarie’s earrings, purportedly made from the first gold discovered in Australia, the order book used by Lance Hill to record his first sales of the Hills Hoist Clotheslines, Patrick White’s Nobel Prize Medal, and Tim Winton’s manuscript of Cloudstreet. In support of these themes, the libraries have contributed some of their most significant documents and artifacts. The first historical theme, Under the Southern Cross, captures some of the stories of the discovery, claiming and mapping of the Australian continent, from the notional ‘Great South Land’ shown on maps through to the recognition of Indigenous land rights. As part of this theme, Cook’s Endeavour Journal will tour Australia for the first time. Straddling this significant early manuscript in time, on one side there is a 1516 letter from Andrea Corsali recording the first known depiction by a European of the Southern Cross constellation and, on the other, a selection of papers of Edward Koiki Mabo representing the significant 1992 High Court acknowledgement of Indigenous land rights.
A feature of the exhibition is the display of some fascinating diaries from a variety of Australians. In 1881, Mary Watson, the wife of a beche-de-mer fisherman, was living on Lizard Island with her three-month-old son and two Chinese servants when they were attacked by Aborigines. They attempted to escape in a boiling tank, but both baby and mother perished. This tragic but largely unknown story of colonial settlement and hardship is captured in a diary and pencilled leaves from the journey. Equally moving is the diary of Margaret Ingham, in which she records her 52-day experience in a lifeboat after being torpedoed in 1942. For ingenuity, however, it is hard to surpass the diary kept by Ray Stewart as a World War II prisoner-of-war of both the Germans and the Italians. The diary is written in pencil on a roll of toilet paper. Written in a situation where writing paper was at a premium and the keeping of such records was a highly dangerous activity, Stewart’s diary covers the period from 27 July to 12 September 1942, from the desert camps of North Africa to the camps in Italy.
Diaries are but one of the many forms of documentation that this exhibition uses to illustrate the richness of our libraries’ collections. Our national obsessions, for example, lend themselves to other forms: collections of wine bottle labels; Don Bradman’s favourite cricket bat (used in scoring 334 runs in the Australia versus England test in 1930); and the painting by Michael Leunig, Street Football, which captures a fast disappearing scene to which many exhibition visitors of a certain age will relate. This exhibition is significant on many fronts. It is the first time that all of Australia’s major libraries have collaborated to produce such an exhibition, and it will undoubtedly lead to future creative partnerships and a stronger and more prominent library touring exhibition network. It will enhance public awareness of the generous benefactors that libraries have had since their establishment in this country, and of the continuing role of libraries in collecting and documenting contemporary Australian life. Through sponsorship arrangements, it will build significant associations across the corporate sector, especially with corporate good citizens such as AAMI, its Principal Sponsor, and other sponsors, including Major Sponsors—Qantas, News Limited, Hoyts, SBS Television, Animal Logic and Sofitel. The National Treasures exhibition opens on 3 December 2005 at the National Library of Australia, where it will be on display for 10 weeks. In March 2006 it will begin its journey throughout the six states ending in the Northern Territory in August 2007. It will stay for eight weeks at each of these venues. Accompanying the exhibition is a magnificent catalogue and comprehensive website, to provide valuable additional information. National Treasures from Australia's Great Libraries is an exhibition not to be missed. —MAREE BENTLEY
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