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Review Article
National Libraries - National myths : a review of Peter Cochrane (ed.) The cultural role of libraries and their place in nation building is a branch of history that has yet to reach maturity. Internationally this area of study has received impetus in recent years with discussions surrounding the repatriation of archives in the aftermath of war, and the targeted destruction of libraries in Eastern Europe to efface the presence of evidence of an ethnically diverse history. In Australia, the role archival institutions can play in the recovery or discovery of Aboriginal personal identity received renewed emphasis in the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, and the more recent Bringing Them Home reports. In no small way, these documents have encouraged a redirection in aspects of institutional thinking beyond the culturally specific celebrations of the Bicentennial and the Centenary of Federation. Australian library practice is the envy of the world, in particular for its history and philosophy of co-operation as manifest in networked cataloguing and strong inter-library lending. This owes much to the vision of the staff of the National Library in their attempts, at times against the grain of the states, to build truly national collections and library systems. Previous writings about the National Library have provided histories of the institution, biographies of collectors and librarians, the processes of collecting and a marking out of objects as treasures held in trust for the nation. The recent history of the National Library - Remarkable Occurrences - is the first attempt at a broader and more culturally-based history of this public institution and as such is one which it is hoped will produce much discussion. Remarkable Occurrences takes its name from words written by James Cook while moored on the River Thames, and destined for Australia. It is published by the National Library of Australia as its centennial volume and is 'a celebration of the National Library's collections and the uses we make of them' (p vii). Milestones such as centenaries provide the stimulus for remembering and commemorations, and this work clearly aligns itself with the Centenary of Federation, thus placing the library within the context of national development and nation building. In doing so, it can be placed within wider debates surrounding the relationship between heritage institutions, collections and national identity. The 'we' in the above statement includes current and former staff members and academics who, at the time of writing, had their base within the 'Eastern triangle' with its Melbourne-Sydney-Canberra axis. This book realigns the way in which histories of the National Library can be written from being linear administrative narratives to being collection-centred. In focusing on collections as the conduit through which national identity is built, this book presents the acquisition process as a series of conversations - between collectors, librarians, scholars and institutions. To this end the authors turn to the greatest sources for this kind of information - the National Library's own internal acquisition files and its collections. This approach provides historical context as to the processes of collection building, and the understanding that the National Library views its operations in 'la longue durÈe' rather than simply in terms of annual or triennial outcome/output based reporting. It also provides an understanding of its composition as a collection of collections, the characters of the collectors, and the role that acts of philanthropy have played in building the national collections. Through this, we gain insight into the complex relationships between personal identity and collection building, the idiosyncrasies of individual collectors and the armory of strategies used in negotiating the often painful process of transferring material from personal to public domains. This book builds the conversations behind the collection building process through a range of different conduits. There are discussions of specific collections such as Greg Dening's masterful writings on the multiple meanings and processes behind the creation and movement of the Cook manuscripts, Tim Bonyhady's discussion of the frustrations of Hardy Wilson in trying to gain recognition for, and thereby place, his collections, and John Thompson's descriptions of negotiating transfers of three collections of personal papers. The great collectors whose names ricochet between the covers of this text - Ferguson and Petherick - are given voice as a result of their bibliophilia and national spirit by Graeme Powell, and Nicholas Thomas provides new insights into Pacific materials brought together by that other great and no less mythical collector, Nan Kivell. More general discussions of processes and ideas behind building the regional Asian collections, and the format collections including photographs, maps, music and oral history, interweave histories of the formats with the nation's development, collectors and the ideas that have informed the collection building processes. The authors create the sense that the lengthy discussions surrounding acquisitions were conducted in gentlemanly, sedate and hushed tones, though women's voices are also heard in particular through the work of Pauline Fanning and Catherine Santamaria. Stuart Macintyre gives some insight into circumstances where these voices become more audible, specifically in relation to the territory of collecting political papers which is contested between the National Archives and the National Library. There are also the tears of Thompson when recounting the active choice of Katharine Susannah Prichard to burn her private papers, the exclamations from Joan Kerr as she explores the unexpected object collections, and the joys of rediscovering both the long lost early Australian film 'The Sentimental Bloke' and one of its creators. There are also two 'bookend' chapters which fill in some of the contextual gaps. Peter Cochrane investigates the processes by which the visions and ideas about future Australian collections and buildings influenced the manner in which they later became a reality in a National Library. In describing the development of the national bibliographic resources, Paul Turnbull provides some brief history of this most important of national research tools on which the National Library's international reputation is rightly founded, and which prefaced the more widespread distribution of electronic data. As a cultural object, the National Library has always aroused passion, and two of the more recent controversies are mentioned which relate in different ways to broader debates about shifting national identities. There is mention of the move in collecting priorities from American and British towards Asian materials in stringent financial times, which brought storms of dissent, mostly from Canberra-based academics. The grand vision but subsequent failure of the World 1 computer system in partnership with New Zealand also receives comment, though clearer understandings of what occurred may have to wait for the 30 year rule to expire. As a cultural study about this cultural object, this book presents a very specific line overlain with the passion of staff, collectors and scholars, contained within the very readable prose of all the pieces. Published by the institution that is the subject of the book, it is a conspicuous attempt to confirm the status the National Library as a cultural institution, and to align its history with the development of the nation. Its history is traced as emerging from the political act of Federation and finally, after many years of imagining, Cochrane sees that it became National when its current building opened in 1968. This is curious in two respects. Firstly the National Library Act in 1960 conferred its National status. Secondly, the curious argument that 'being national' equates with having a permanent home is retained to this day by the use of the National Library building as its logo, but which could be seen to be anachronistic at the time of its completion in 1968. Itwas not argued so in this publication, but there is a certain irony that a building which physically centralises a library service, can in fact be seen as symbolising an institution whose contemporary rhetoric has argued precisely the opposite. To its credit, the National Library has led the nation, at times kicking and screaming, towards the practice behind the rhetoric of the distributed national collection, and the idea of the library without walls. It has underpinned this rhetoric with the foundation of a sound bibliographic database and maintaining the prime importance of its building in the national psyche. The argument regarding the cultural role of the library also stakes a claim that in some senses could be contested. The text mentions that the political origins of what is now the National Library evolved out of the tiny cell of the Parliamentary Library, but by minimising this particular origin, this text attempts to transform these somewhat utilitarian and political origins into a greater national purpose at the first opportunity. It defines the cultural moment when it first starts 'Becoming National' to the purchase of the Endeavour log in 1923 and the resultant formation of the Australian section of the Parliamentary Library. However, from this moment Cochrane effectively describes the process by which the institution is 'Becoming Cultural' as well as National. While highlighting the ideas and visions of a National Library that prefaced its reality gives an interesting approach to presenting its history, the book evades further discussion as to what both the idea and the reality of being a cultural institution means today. Cochrane argues rather dispassionately that it is 'a repository for the documentation of the heritage of a nation; it is a centre for scholarship and the exchange of ideas' (p xiii). However, what does not appear to have been explicitly evoked beyond passing mention is the relationship between the National Library and the collective memory of the nation. Harnessing this powerful metaphor, which has been adopted in the official rhetoric of Canadian libraries and archives for many years, is, given the range of authors and their cultural interests, a somewhat curious omission. Invoking this theoretical line would have strengthened any argument for the cultural role of this institution, as well as placing this work firmly within this cultural historical approach. There is a natural assumption built into this book that the National Library, having assumed its building, its act and its name, is somehow automatically National. While the question how National is the National Library is an important one to ask, it seems to have evaded the Canberra-centric cast of authors. Although this may seem a tautological question for those in the East, it is an important one to ask from a Western perspective, where the idea, much less the reality of the National Library may escape daily focus. Turnbull's description of the bibliographic mechanisms by which Networking of the Nation became a reality addresses this issue in part but without critical appraisal of purpose or success in this area. While Networking the Nation is one means by which the National Library may meet its national charter, the representation of the nation in the national collections is an issue on which the authors have remained strangely silent. Along with the assumption that the building equates with being national, there are cracks in the text that reveal the bias of the writers who look East over the Pacific rather than face West towards the rest of the nation, and who seem to ignore the North and Tasmania almost entirely. In one such example, the nation is described as emerging from the depression of the 1890s which is, of course, news to Western Australia. In that state, this decade of prosperity included discoveries of gold that led to the consequent boost in the population, and resulted in economic and infrastructure development of the order equalled only by the Snowy Mountains scheme - CY O'Connor's water pipeline to the Eastern Goldfields. Some readers may be left with the impression that National part of the National Library implicitly means the Sydney-Melbourne-Canberra axis. A more cultural example of the kind of national identity the National Library projects, shows some of the dangers in equating these two concepts too closely. The creation of the idea that the icon of the collection is the log of the Endeavour voyages maintains a focus on the East coast as the site of discovery of Australia, thereby erasing the memory of much contact history that occurred on the West coast before the East was colonised. It not only perpetuates the out-dated equation of Captain Cook with the 'discovery' of Australia, but more importantly, this particularly Anglo-centric approach continues to silence other versions of Australia's past. At a different level, the iconic status of this manuscript accorded by the National Library reveals both the institutional perception of the primacy of the manuscript over the published form, and the primacy of the rare form over the popular publication, which is so beautifully exposed by Thomas. To its credit, this book mentions the National Library holding published accounts by Pelsaart and Dampier of Dutch experiences along the West coast at least a century before the settlement of the East. More explicitly, it contains reproductions of evidence of the tangible representation of the idea of an imaginary Australia in maps long before its eventual discovery in Susan Rickard's clear exposition of map-making and national identity. However, the promotion of particular artifacts and the primacy of forms of material by the institution as national icons which serve to promote some kinds of national histories above others is a dangerous game that requires close reconsideration by its staff and public relations machine. It also has more subtle manifestations that feed back into historical teaching at secondary and tertiary level where, for example, maps are relegated, along with objects, to the lower end of scale of evidentiary importance. Rather than peddling the already over-emphasised view that particular forms are the most important source for historical information, is not one role of national institutions to open our minds to new opportunities and sources that are collected and preserved on our behalf? While the National Library is undoubtedly a cultural institution, it cannot escape the fact that it, like most kindred libraries, is also a deeply political institution. At one level, perceptions that it was a vehicle for political masters were raised during the aforementioned debates surrounding the ongoing development of Asian collections at the expense of the American and British collections in 1990s. When viewing this debate with some hindsight, what comes through is the vision of Harold White as National Librarian in anticipating the need for collections focusing on Asia ahead of the scholars and politicians who now benefit from its contents and form. However, there are also more insidious aspects to the political nature of the National Library which the authors of this book evade. For example, one tautological phrase of the editor is both unintentionally revealing and problematic, and in effect undermines some of the work that the National Library has tried to do on this score described by Barry York. In his introduction, Cochrane writes in relation to a current oral history program that 'The 300 "Bringing Them Home" interviews proposed will extend the library's already comprehensive collection of materials relating to colonisation and indigenous cultures from first contact until the present'. This attitude takes little account of the in-built biases of the cacophony of voices that speak the majority of the histories in the library - those who are the colonisers. As a political statement it ignores the fact that the formats of the material that are preserved, have, with only a few exceptions, disenfranchised Aboriginal people for much of the past 200 years. With all the will in the world, and even with an active program to collect an extensive Aboriginal voice in a variety of formats, how can such collections assume to be comprehensive in their telling the stories of the past from multiple perspectives, even if that is their goal? An even more peculiar set of omissions relates to how the National Library has silenced its own more recent history. The book title clearly states that it covers the first hundred years of the National Library. The years of Kenneth Binns and Harold White receive almost reverential treatment throughout the text, while Arthur Wadsworth, as Librarian on Loan from the Victorian Parliamentary Library whose overdue notice extends to some 26 years, gets a much worse press. There is, however, an uncanny silence on what has been described as the post-White era - the last 30 years under Alan Fleming, George Chandler, Harrison Bryan and most recently, Warren Horton. How can a history of the first century of this institution remain almost mute on those who led the institution for nearly a third of its existence, and even more if one takes the National Library's official starting date from its Act in 1960? Their thoughts and conversations are better recorded in some respects than the earlier voices, and their actions and attitudes are etched into the memories of many current and former staff. That this path of silence has been chosen in this publication begs the question, why? Are there things we are not allowed to know, or opinions that no-one dares speak? Perhaps the answer to these and other questions that relate to the politics and history of the construction of this very publication lie in the correspondence files that document its own history, if the tradition of documenting such publication histories that Alec Bolton nurtured has continued. It is hoped that one day these files will also be thrown open for public scrutiny, as have their acquisition files which form the basis of this fine work. There is much we learn from such histories as contained in Remarkable Occurrences in terms of how to identify future directions to which cultural institutions and library practice should aspire. This work shows the passion and vision of librarians and collectors of earlier years, and the process of building national identities through collecting activities. In this context, the silence on more contemporary National Library leaders bears some further thought in terms of the image of the profession within a wider public domain. While economic circumstances have shifted dramatically in the past 30 years, so has institutional vision and management practice within libraries. Is it that those behind this publication sought only to celebrate a past era of librarianship with the comfort of time and distance rather than place contemporary leadership and their directions under the microscope? Or does this silence signify recognition by the authors and the wider academe of a malaise in modern professional library practice? Is it that more recent National Librarians/Director-Generals have lacked the kinds of vision recognised amongst past leaders that are so celebrated in this publication? Or is this silence an explicit expression of the authors' distaste of librarians who value modern management practices above scholarship, collection building and visionary ideals, as Macintyre has suggested elsewhere? Such a silence on contemporary leaders leaves the impression that having 'Become National' in 1968 with its new building rather than in 1960 with its own Act, nothing of national significance has been achieved since this time. Perhaps we will have to wait, as Thompson writes to, 'let time and chance decide' to be able to provide answers to more than the aforementioned World 1 experience and the leadership of the last 30 years. So, in one operation the library both opens up its own history for public praise and adoration, yet shies away from including the actions of its most recent leaders. But the silences in this book go much deeper than the effervescence of contemporary leadership whose time for assessment will no doubt come. The time is past when it is acceptable to exclude an indigenous voice amongst the authors in a publication of this kind, particularly when cultural encounters is one theme running through some of the papers. Such silences speak of deep-seated fears that inhibit constructing inclusive national identities, despite the politically correct rhetoric of institutional documentation to do otherwise. While the 'Bringing Them Home' oral history project is certainly a step towards building and managing more culturally sensitive collections, there are opportunities which have been passed by. Turnbull gives cursory mention to the struggles of Australian cataloguers to include local subject headings into international library tools, when pursuit of this issue would have provided an opportunity to highlight the recent and innovative work by indigenous librarians towards the use of culturally appropriate subject headings. An indigenous perspective on the collections held in the National Library could have been enhanced by a carefully chosen discussion on how significant paper-based collections created by Aboriginal people, which receive only cursory mention in the introduction, have been secured. Equally, this publication could have raised a more sensitive set of issues surrounding repatriation of Aboriginal materials, the challenges facing libraries trying to include voices of communities whose mnemonic devices are held in forms of material that libraries traditionally do not collect, or discussions from an indigenous perspective of the nature of the representations of themselves in the library's collections. These are among a range of topics that would have begun to rectify the disturbingly deep cultural bias at the core of this text. There are other issues that arise from this book that warrant brief discussion. Readers discover the depth and breadth of forms of material which are held in Canberra, and gain hints as to what other institutions and even countries may have missed out on. We also learn that the strategic use of Harold White's charming wife was the ultimate weapon in convincing reluctant donors to part with their material. Perhaps the most rewarding collecting strategy that the library adopted is the way that, as an institution, it had the foresight to both foster and harness the passion of collectors of particular forms of material. No better example is described than that of the recently deceased John Meredith. Built over many years, and encouraged by the library in a variety of ways, his collections of folkloric material - in particular vernacular music traditions - stand as a unique record of an otherwise undocumented aspect of Australian life. Equally, and one of the many benefits of this book, this foresight in building partnerships long before it became part of the lexicon of contemporary management-speak, stands as an example to other state and local libraries to consider extending the traditional form of taped oral history collections to this particular genre of recording. This book bears testimony to the fact that the National Library has been actively building partnerships with scholars outside its own institution for a long time. As is so well described by Macintyre, this is vital in discovering new and important collections. Such a partnership implicitly provides a lobby group in more stringent times, to which it also fell victim when the economic tide turned in the 1990s. However, this book also bears testimony that the library sought eastern states-based scholars and those of high repute to investigate its own history rather than fostering newer scholars, or any voice that lies outside the 'Eastern triangle'. In itself, this is a trend that the National Library should find steps to realign, as fostering the next generation of scholars is critical to the long term survival of partnerships with researchers, to the production of new and innovative scholarly work, and to the reassessment of contemporary library practice, to which I will return shortly. This book shows that building relationships between scholars and cultural institutions is an excellent mechanism to foster new intellectual endeavours that bring new understandings to academics, staff and the general readership for whom this book is intended. One of the great strengths of this book is that the reader is seamlessly introduced to a range of contemporary theoretical approaches that include investigating cross-cultural encounters, and the source of multiple meanings that surround objects. As Joan Kerr writes, within libraries the narrative that surrounds the objects should be more exciting than the objects themselves, and this book is clear demonstration of the possibilities of this approach to writing about both single objects and collections. However, the limitations placed by library practice on the writers' theoretical goals are visible in the published captions to the objects and photographs, and more so in the metadata from which they are derived, therein exposing the still vast gap between contemporary library practice and this cultural theoretical approach. The authors of this work have worked hard to overcome standard library understandings and descriptions of objects through the use of acquisition files and some sensitive lateral thinking. But there remains the broader danger that library practice may continue to hinder the development of new theoretical approaches to history such as contained within this book unless there is more intense engagement with scholars at the cutting edge of their disciplines. Through writing this book, the scholars have provided ample demonstration that the internal documentation of cultural institutions is a rich resource for historical study, and that it maintains an ongoing relationship with the materials whose histories they both contain and describe. Accordingly, it is trusted that future scholars will be given such ease of access to this important resource. Equally, it is hoped that these files, unlike such records of cultural institutions in some states, escape the threat of transfer to the Archives and thus the inevitable divorce from their own site of ongoing and dynamic meanings. For those currently engaged in debates surrounding legislative changes such as those recently-enacted in Western Australia, this book provides evidence for the retention in situ of these records as an integral part of the core collection of cultural institutions. This book should be placed in our libraries and our own collections, and wide readership encouraged as it is an important, fascinating and accessible work. However, and perhaps most importantly, we can take another message from this book into our own practice and lives. As librarians, we are not neutral. Our work is intensely political. As institutions libraries are not passive storehouses, but political hothouses. We must never forget that information is created for specific purposes, and can service the ends of both constructing and erasing national identities and national myths. The log of the Endeavour of which the National Library is so proud bears testimony to this. This book rests as an implicit record that most library collections also reflect the biographies of the collectors, their biases, obsessions and the contexts and markets in which they have operated over time. As such, it is ample demonstration of the need for the library profession to become more self-reflexive about the role of our own professional practice in creating meanings that will outlast our own custodial role. From reading this book we gain an understanding of past library practice and are given some perspective on the relationship between national collection building and national myth-making. With the benefit of hindsight, we can now see that it is time to work towards building institutional collections that move beyond our own social networks, collective experiences and personal biographies. From seeing buildings as the ultimate statements and defining moments of national status and identity, we need to make very active attempts to incorporate the fears and imaginations of a broader sample of the people who constitute the nation into our collections. Only then can we work towards such collections becoming National in a variety of new and exciting ways, and which can then foster new kinds of histories to be written.
Joanna Sassoon NotesSee for example E Simpson (ed) The Spoils of War. World War II and Its Aftermath: The Loss, Reappearance and Recovery of Cultural Property. New York Harry N Abrams Inc Riedlmayer Andras 1997; Libraries Are Not For Burning: International Librarianship and the Recovery of Destroyed Heritage of Bosnia and Herzegovinia Paper presented at the 61st International Federation of Library Associations conference August 1995. http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla61/61-rlea.htm Australia. Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody National Report Canberra Australian Government Publishing Service 1991; National Enquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families (Australia) Bringing Them Home: Report of the National Enquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families (Australia) Sydney Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission 1997 P Biskup & M Henty (ed) Library for the Nation Canberra Australian Academic & Research Libraries/National Library of Australia 1991; Paradise Possessed: The Rex Nan Kivell Collection Canberra National Library of Australia 1998; J Thompson (ed) The People's Treasures. Collections in the National Library of Australia Canberra National Library of Australia 1993 G M White 'Museum/Memorial/Shrine: National Narrative in National Spaces' Museum Anthropology vol 21 no1 1997 pp8-27; P Stanley 'The Australian War Memorial - National or Nationalist Institution?' Agora 4 1996 pp11-19; T Bennett The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics London Routledge 1995 The National Archives of Canada sees its mission as 'To preserve the collective memory of the nation and the government of Canada, and to contribute to the protection of rights and the enhancement of a sense of national identity ...' http://www.archives.ca. Evidence of the National Library of Australia harnessing this rhetoric heads its document Directions for 2000-2002. Below a photograph of the National Library is Pierre Ryckman's 1996 quote 'A National Library is a place where a nation nourishes its memory, and exerts its imagination - where it connects with its past and invents its future'. http://www.nla.gov.au/library/directions.html S Macintyre 'Archives and Research Practice' National Scholarly Collections Forum Round Table no 10 November 1999 http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/nscf/roundtables/r10/10_macintyre.html H Moorcroft & A Harris Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Thesaurus Canberra Australian Library & Information Association 1997
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