The National Library of Australia

5 May

Laying of the National Library foundation stone by Sir Robert Menzies, 31 March, 1966. Image from the NLA.

On this day, 5 May 1960, Acting Prime Minister John McEwen announces in the House of Representatives that the Menzies Government is creating a stand-alone National Library of Australia. McEwen had originally tried to make the announcement the previous day, but leave had been denied by the Speaker. Prior to the establishment of the NLA, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library had not only served the Federal Parliament but also functioned as a pseudo-national library, a balancing act that had proven increasingly difficult as both the Parliament and the nation had grown in size and complexity. Under legislation which Menzies would personally introduce in November of 1960, the new independent NLA would be allowed to greatly expand its scope and accessibility, producing the world leading institution that we know today.

When the Federal Parliament was first established in its temporary home in Melbourne in 1901, the first Prime Minister Edmund Barton had initially been inclined to borrow the Victorian Parliamentary Library, rather than go to the expense of establishing a new entity. This view was opposed by the expert librarian HCL Anderson, who dreamed of creating an institution that would one day emulate the successful and impressive model of America’s Library of Congress.

A Parliamentary Committee was established under the chairmanship of Speaker Frederick Holder to explore the library issue, and while it articulated hopes that were higher than Barton’s, it had little choice but to appoint a Victorian Public Servant, Arthur Wadsworth, as Interim Commonwealth Parliamentary Librarian. Wadsworth was essentially a ‘librarian on loan’ from the State Government, and while he would hold the position for 26 years, his tenure would be considered somewhat disappointing in terms of library acquisitions. Nevertheless, he built up a strong collection of official publications, laid the foundation for a general reference collection, and acquired some important basic Australiana.

From 1918 Wadsworth’s efforts were supplemented by those of the new assistant-librarian Kenneth Binns, who brought a fresh perspective from outside the public service as he came from the University of Sydney’s Fisher Library. Binns was the driving force behind the creation of a specific Australian or ‘National’ section within the library, which was rapidly enlarged through both purchases and attracting benefactors, most of whom had previously tended to gravitate towards respected State institutions like the Mitchell Library in Sydney. A much-lauded early acquisition for the Australian Section was the addition in 1923 of the manuscript of Captain Cook’s journal of his voyage to Australia on the Endeavour in 1770.

In 1927 the Parliament finally moved to Canberra and the Parliamentary Library naturally followed suit, taking up a portion of Parliament House. The library was then the only one in the A.C.T., and it was soon giving out loans to tertiary and high school students, as well as the broader Canberra community.

With the move, Binns took over as Commonwealth Parliamentary Librarian, expanding the library’s operations with the establishment of the Annual Catalogue of Australian Publications in 1936, the National Historical Film and Speaking Record Section in 1937, and a permanent library training school in 1946. That same year saw the introduction of a current index to Australian periodicals called the Australian Public Affairs Information Service (APA/SJ), in 1948 the Library inaugurated the Australian Joint Copying Project (AJCP) to copy Australian records in the Public Record Office and elsewhere in the United Kingdom, and in 1952 the Library became designated as the Commonwealth’s Archival Authority.

In 1947 Binns was replaced by Harold White, who was to serve as National Librarian for the duration of the Menzies era, and who developed a very productive working relationship with the Prime Minister. This was epitomised by the 1956 appointment of the Paton Committee to inquire into the Library’s future directions, which notably held its proceedings simultaneously with the landmark Murray Committee into Higher Education, which would greatly impact the future of Australia’s university libraries and Australia’s research output.

1958 marked a major turning point with the visit of innovative and respected American librarian Keyes Metcalf. He headed the ‘Metcalf Seminar’, which assembled almost all of Australia’s leading librarians and their designated successors, and even many of their New Zealand counterparts, to give consideration to the present and future of the Australian library world. One of the lingering tensions in the Australian library system was that the State Libraries, which predated and for many decades were far more substantial than the national institution, jealously guarded their pre-eminence. However, Metcalf insisted that ‘the future of Australian research and scholarship depended not only on meaningful cooperation among the major libraries but also on the strengthening of the Commonwealth National Library itself’.

The direct result of the seminar was the Menzies Government’s National Library Act 1960. This created the National Library of Australia as an independent statutory institution with its own governing council, reduced the Parliamentary Library to its original function, and passed the archives into direct departmental control. On 31 March 1966, after he had left office but acknowledging work that had begun long before, Menzies laid the foundation stone for the National Library’s permanent home, which was to be, at last, a separate and impressive building in the heart of the national capital. Menzies used the occasion to explain the intent behind his government’s investment in the NLA:

‘It is our duty in this generation to store and tend to the books that are produced, that the future will learn something about us. We are learning from the past, we are learning from each other, we are helping to instruct and inform the future; this is a most tremendous process in the human mind… It’s only when we realise that we are part of a great procession, that we’re not just here today and gone tomorrow, that we draw strength from the past and we may transmit some strength to the future’

By the time of Harold White’s retirement in 1970 the NLA had finally and firmly established itself as Australia’s leading library. Its reports clearly articulated that its role was one of national leadership in the field, and it was imposing its position as head of a hierarchy by standardising cataloguing throughout the country. White became the only Australian librarian to ever receive a knighthood, a recognition of his own achievements, but also of the central importance of the institution which Menzies’s legislation had created.

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