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Travel Opportunity for Younger Staff

The Binns Fellowship is a National Library of Australia award that allows staff members in the early years of their career to travel for professional development. The award can be used for a variety of purposes, including a placement in another institution, a study trip, an international conference, or to undertake an educational program.

In 2005, the inaugural year, two Binns Fellowships were awarded.

Natasha Simons from Libraries Australia travelled to Canada in June to look at resource-sharing models, and attend the Canadian Libraries Association Conference. She was able to visit a number of institutions. Natasha discovered that Canadian resource sharing is focused on provincial systems, but within provinces there is much inter-sectoral cooperation. The conference in Calgary highlighted the need for cooperation and networking among librarians. You can find Natasha's article on her trip in the December issue of InCite.

Later in 2005 Emma Corbett from Customer Service spent three weeks in New Zealand to look at the implementation of online reference services. These include AnyQuestions, an online chat reference service for school children, and AskNow!, an Australian virtual reference service, which the National Library of New Zealand participates in. Emma also attended the 2005 LIANZA conference in Christchurch.

The Binns Fellowship is sponsored by Kenneth Binns’ daughter Ms Alison Sanchez.

Kenneth Binns was Chief Librarian of the Commonwealth National Library from 1928 to 1947, having joined the Library in 1911 as a cataloguer. He worked closely with some major donors, such as Edward Petherick, and sought funds to acquire Cook’s Endeavour journal and many other notable collection items.

Along with Harold White and a number of other notable Australian librarians, Binns’ influence on post-war library developments was significant. This was due, at least in part, to their exposure to overseas libraries. The 1934 Munn-Pitt report had recommended that Australian librarians be assisted to travel abroad, and Binns won the Carnegie Travelling Fellowship in that same year, using it to travel to the United States .

His achievements were not restricted to the Australia library system. Binns campaigned successfully for the establishment of the National Archives of Australia, and he worked towards the development of the National Screen and Sound Archive, the National Gallery of Australia, and the National Museum of Australia. Binns was also a foundation member of the Australian Institute of Librarians (now ALIA); accepting the position of president from 1940 to 1944.

 

Sandra Henderson

Coordination Support Branch
National Library of Australia