John Levett, BA (Newcastle) MLib (Monash) FLAA

1999 HCL Anderson Award citation

Educator, author, editor, administrator, association activist, librarian, John Levett has made an exemplary and far reaching contribution to the library and information profession in Australia and to the theory and practice of librarianship. He began work as a library cadet at the Newcastle Public Library and joined the Association in 1954. From 1961 to 1968 he was chief librarian of the Lake Macquarie Shire Library (NSW), serving a socially disparate and geographically scattered population. He was deputy State Librarian of Tasmania from 1968 to 1970, when he became director of the Resource Materials Centre at the Tasmanian College of Advanced Education. He was appointed director of the Department of Librarianship, Archives and Records in the College and subsequently transferred in 1981 with the department to the University of Tasmania. From 1992-94 he was professorial chair of the Department of Librarianship, Archives and Records at Monash University, Melbourne.

John has taught and written about a variety of subjects, including the sociology of libraries; administration; the role, function and values of contemporary public library service; children's literature; the selection and evaluation of library materials and research methods in librarianship. Much of his teaching has been at postgraduate and Master's level. His personal dedication to professional educational standards and values enabled him to attract and lead quality staff and produce high calibre graduates.

President of the Association in 1991, John has served on a variety of Association committees covering censorship, public libraries, social issues, audio-visual services, financial support for state and public libraries, publications and international relations. He was for five years a member of the ALIA Board of Education and a general councillor for four periods in 1969, 1978, 1983-84 and 1990-92. He became a fellow of the Library Association of Australia in 1988.

Students and colleagues involved with him in academic and professional activities attest to his role as a constructive critic and to his ability to stimulate thought and action on values, professional and community responsibilities and qualitative responses to change. He has inculcated in those around him a lasting intellectual and professional commitment to librarianship.

An outstanding achievement has been his editorship of the Australian Library Journal. He has produced the Association's flagship publication, with one break, since 1981, ensuring quality and substance in its articles, encouraging new authors and leading debate on sometimes controversial issues in its editorials. He is often called the conscience of Australian librarianship because of his fierce defence of its fundamental values.

John Levett has enriched librarianship, provided intellectual leadership and benefited Australian society at many levels over three decades. It is fitting that he should receive the Association's highest award, which commemorates HCL Anderson, principal librarian of the Free Public Library of New South Wales from 1893 to 1906 and one of the great early Australian librarians.