 home > groups > active > proactive > 227 > September 2002 |
|||
ACTive ALIAproACTiveNumber 227: September 2002National Capital Authority LibraryOpening 15 August 2002 Text of an address by Ian McCallum, Director, Libraries Alive! Pty Ltd and past national president of the Library and Information Association of Australia. We began with the words of Walter Burley Griffin... 'The city of the future. The most beautiful city in history.' Visions of the Future; Voices from the Past: what an appropriate title for the opening of this new Library and Information Centre. Special libraries like this exist to ensure that the lessons of the past are available for the architects of the future. In preparing these remarks I have drawn from Sir John Overalls 1995 publication: Canberra: yesterday, today and tomorrow, a personal memoir. In the foreword to the book Sir John acknowledges the importance of access to the NCPA Library, and especially to its pictorial collection. Im sure that every Australian with an interest in understanding what it is to be Australian supports the objectives of the National Capital Authority:
It has taken a long time to create 'the city of the future'. 87 years since federation to build a permanent parliament house. But the achievement has been spectacular and against the odds: a triumph of vision over parochialism. Today we are privileged to live in one of the most beautiful: and well-documented: cities in the world: even if it was necessary to drown a golf course and a racecourse to reveal the genius of Griffin's plan. The Authority's newly re-located library and information centre records these achievements and underpins the Authority's mission to build the National Capital in the hearts of all Australians. For if we are to really experience the connection between personal identity and national identity, Canberra is where many of the links are stored. For the most part, this is where we've built the monuments to our society, our great cultural institutions. National Parliaments, National Library, National Archives, War Memorial, National Gallery, National Museum, National University, CSIRO, Science and Technology Centre, High Court, and many others. And their siting has been planned so well that we can walk between them. This library documents the creation of something stunning out of a bare limestone plain. And as the Authority now builds the national capital in the hearts of Australians, the library provides the food for our thoughts. To understand at an emotional level what it is to live in a commonwealth greater than the sum of its parts, also means understanding at an intellectual level how we came to get here. And all points in the journey are mapped in this place. To quote from the 2000-2001 Annual Report: 'The Authority's deliberations have confirmed a view that the National Capital should have a character which includes recollection, recognition, reflection and leadership in the continuing story of the nation.' (p.22)
All libraries provide a safe haven for thoughts and ideas. They organise information so it can be gathered together again, preserve it so it can be recognised subsequently, provide the raw material for reflection, and accurately chart the views of others so that what is learned once does not have to be learned over and over again. This library, with its strong urban design and development collection, its 3 000 specialist reports, its 25 000 priceless images, and especially its public access policy, is the prime resource for recollection, recognition, and reflection on the development history of our only national city: the first city to belong not to Queenslanders or Victorians or Territorians, and so on, but to all Australians. This library is also the knowledge base, the repository of many of Canberra's stories, the inventory of achievements, and the departure point for our civic future. The library will continue to collect and preserve: and to digitise and provide expanding electronic access to its treasures, just as the Authority continues to broaden its horizons through participation in the national capitals alliance with Washington, Brasilia and Ottawa. Organised information underpins all these activities. I find Canberra a wonderfully improbable event, and one of my favourite stories is about Lake Burley Griffin: (Overall p.55) 'Following Department of Works hydrological studies which confirmed the lake was feasible, the NCDC asked for 1 million pounds to allow work to begin. The money was included in the estimates with the approval of Prime Minister Menzies, who then went off to England. When he returned he found that treasury had persuaded ministers to remove the lake funding from the budget.' Menzies says in his autobiography: 'At the very first meeting after my return, and when I had completed a survey of matters which had been discussed abroad, I turned to the treasurer, who was my good friend...and said with what I hoped was a disarming smile, "Am I rightly informed that when I was away the treasury struck out this item of one million for the initial work on the lake?" The reply was yes and that cabinet had agreed. I then said "Well, can I take it that by unanimous consent of ministers the item is now struck back in." A lot of laughter ran around the cabinet room; there were some matters on which they reasonably thought that the old man should be humoured.' The day after approval the Commission had bulldozers digging in to the lake bed. But it still wasnt over. (Overall p56). On 20 September 1963 Menzies Minister for the Interior Gordon Freeth closed the valves on the completed Scrivener dam and the man-made component of the lake was complete. But the filling of the lake was painfully slow. A drought which had (p57) made the excavation work much easier than it would normally have been also made the finished product an embarrassment. When pools began to form in some areas they attracted mosquitoes and the fears of some critics of the project appeared to have been realised. For nearly seven months it looked as though the project was going to be a major embarrassment. The national rowing championships were scheduled to take place in April 1964, and as they approached with little sign of the lake filling, one of the commission's engineers, Bill Minty, began dynamiting some of the shallower parts. But the rains came just in time, and the dusty lake bed filled with water within a brief few days. Canberra has overcome so much (and herein lies its soul):
and it has battled deeds: this time, quoting Sir John Overall:
And the rest, as they say, is history. Under the National Capital Development Commission, Canberra grew from 36 000 people in 1958 to 155 000 in 1972. 30 years on we're double that size, and a city in a forest. Canberra's story is recorded right here. In this very place. Some of the treasures of this library are original NCDC reports. Heres a few examples:
And there are many more examples displayed all around us. As the National Capital Authority looks to build the National Capital in the hearts of all Australians, this library both protects the past and projects into the future. I am honoured to officially declare it open.
Source: |
|
