On the cover this month
Paul Livingston (b.1947)
Fireworks Near the National Library of Australia during the
Australia Day Fireworks Spectacular, Canberra, 26 January 2006
colour digital photograph
Pictures Collection
nla.pic-vn3647177
2008 marks the 40th anniversary of the opening of the National Library of Australia building by Prime Minister John Gorton on 15 August 1968. The concept of a national library building had been in germination for many decades. The national collections and the staff who cared for them were housed in many temporary locations before the permanent National Library building finally opened. In the words of the then Director-General of the National Library, Harold White, these decades had been the Library’s ‘years in the Wilderness’.
Today the building is so well known to Canberrans and interstate visitors that it is hard to imagine it not always having been on its prominent site in the Parliamentary Triangle—reflected in Lake Burley Griffin’s waters by day, and dramatically lit at night. Its impressive marble-clad neoclassical design and specially commissioned building artworks are heritage-listed, and form an indispensable part of the national imagination.
August 2008 Volume XVIII Number 11
Staggering out of the ‘Wilderness’
On its 40th anniversary, Christine Fernon tells the story of the National Library building’s epic journey
Being there: A Personal and Mostly Misty Memory of the Opening of the National Library Building
Carmel Maguire recalls experiences from before and after the cutting of the ribbon, back on 15 August 1968
Poem: untitled sonnet by Joan Lynravn
Degrees of Refreshment
Colin Bannerman describes the fare served at events surrounding the Library’s opening
Building the Art of the National Library
Genevieve Carson considers the inspiration for and creation of the Library’s building art
Friends
A regular news page about the activities of the Friends of the National Library of Australia
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