AARL

Andrew Osborn's The Library Keeper's Business: its impact and relevance today

R L Cope

Abstract: Andrew Osborn's Inaugural Address, The Library Keeper's Business (LKB), was delivered at the University of Sydney in 1959 when he assumed the post of university librarian. LKB, in which Osborn set out a personal credo, had an immediate impact at Sydney University and beyond. It was to some extent also a program for Australian research libraries and, more broadly, for the profession of librarianship. LKB deserves re-assessment, both as a document of its time and as an index of the changes in the research library world in Australia. This article looks firstly at historical factors which influenced Osborn's attitudes, and then considers the contemporary relevance of LKB in 'an unhistorical age such as ours' (Gertrude Himmelfarb). The article concludes by advocating a renewed, but broader analysis of Osborn's influence and ideas with regard to the purpose and future of Australian research and scholarly library collections. The notion of 'organic collections' (Herbert Putnam) is raised as a point of discussion in this context.

Andrew Osborn's return to his native land in 1958 introduced ingredients which were badly needed in the Australian academic library sector: new blood and new ideas, based on wide and varied experience at a high level. His energy was immense and he made a dazzling vision of the scope of libraries seem a reality within grasp. The academic library world he found in Australia might best be described as a provincial, cocooned milieu where developments had been at best modest. This is not to say that there were no librarians of talent working at the time. The stagnation was rather a reflection of the economic, social and historical factors which determined the course of the Australian federation from 1901. Whilst Australian librarianship could achieve, even under adverse circumstances, some respectable gains, the overall position was not particularly impressive. The Munn-Pitt report of 1934 may be cited as evidence of this. Admittedly, several State Libraries had, by virtue of their age and by the calibre of some of their chiefs, succeeded in building up collections that were noteworthy in a context where the standards and expectations were modest. The added fact that Great Britain, to which Australians had long looked for inspiration and models, was able to offer little encouragement, had a dampening effect in Australia. Gradually the recognition that the United States offered the best examples of progress in the field began to make headway in Australia. After the end of the Second World War, this knowledge became irresistible, above all in academic librarianship.

The major postwar change in the Australian university library scene came in 1957 when the Menzies Government appointed Sir Keith Murray, a British higher education expert, to head a committee to evaluate the Australian universities. This committee's Report found grave deficiencies in the university sphere in general, including in the libraries and other infrastructure. [1] The Government accepted the report's recommendations and began to implement massive financial improvements and expansion of the university sector and its infrastructure. A period of new and badly needed vitality swept across the tertiary educational sector in Australia. The Murray Report and its great promise for academic libraries led Andrew Osborn to return to his native country after an absence of three decades. The post of university librarian at Sydney University was to fall vacant in 1959 with the retirement of the incumbent, E V Steel. Osborn accepted a call to Sydney, coming in 1958 as associate librarian, with the understanding that he would succeed Steel. He had thus a settling-in period and a chance to size up the task confronting him. In his new role as head of the oldest university library in the country, Osborn achieved in a period of under five years results that were unrivalled in Australian library history.

The Library Keeper's Business

The Great Hall of Sydney University was, on the evening of 24 March 1959, the venue for the delivery of A D Osborn's inaugural address The Library Keeper's Business. [2] The occasion, under the auspices of the University of Sydney Arts Society, was something of a novelty at the time. Although the university tradition of inaugural lectures is a long one, in Australia at least, it had rarely encompassed librarians as speakers. The rather old-fashioned title Osborn chose for his address belied its novelty and the ferment in its content. LKB provided an intellectual underpinning and rationale for Osborn's actions as librarian to the University of Sydney. To this extent it may be seen as a 'political' statement as well as a professional one. It was at the same time a didactic document with the aim of educating its hearers in a particular philosophy of librarianship. The address bears clearly the stamp of its time and the influence of American attitudes to the developing Cold War era. It also well exemplifies Andrew Osborn's intellectual vitality and his comfortable relationship with big ideas. The very first two sentences define the framework for much of what follows:

At no time in the history of civilization have the purposes and importance of libraries been as clearly defined as at present. You can see precisely what I mean when you analyse the proposition that the current arms race is, at bottom, a race for supremacy in research, and libraries are basic to research. (p167)

In evoking the 'history of civilization', Osborn was establishing a paradigm which distinguished him in a key way from most of his Australian contemporaries in university libraries. He had a firm grasp of the international research and library context and of the world of scholarly publishing. This lifted his observations onto a new plane for the audience he was then addressing. He could readily draw on European and American parallels and precedents in a way that was impressive and convincing. This also lent his discourse generally a depth and authority that few could easily rival. He could command a level of attention beyond the confines of the library profession.

A major point of emphasis in LKB was the opposition of ideologies in the modern world and the need of democracies to maintain an edge in scientific and technological fields. Osborn's remarks about the Soviet Union's research library capabilities are clear indicators of this concern which reached significant heights in American thought when the Soviet satellite Sputnik was launched in October 1957. A little later the publication by the American Library Association of Soviet Libraries and Librarianship, by Ruggles and Swank, further exemplified the same perceptions as Osborn had identified. [3] Osborn's reference to Indonesia as a purchaser of Western materials in the fields of science and technology is even more directly aimed at an Australian audience which is being made aware of developments which might have national security implications for them one day. It is against such a background that he continues:

...it should be a rather sobering thought that dawns upon us when we realize that countries which come under communist domination, as well as countries in which there is a sharply rising tide of nationalism, immediately set about the task of promoting libraries as a basic part of their educational, cultural, industrial and military programmes. (p167)

Osborn then traces in a broad-brush manner the growth of European research libraries and mentions a number of prominent librarians and collectors who aided this growth. Sir Thomas Bodley is singled out for particular praise for his vision and active collecting practices. The influence of copyright deposit on the growth of research libraries is another theme Osborn develops. The failure of the Bodleian Library to acquire a copy of the Shakespeare First Folio (1623) because, it is suggested, of elitist ideas of the time about the value of plays, leads him to draw the following conclusion:

[The failure of the Bodleian Library to acquire the First Folio in 1623] points up one great difficulty which confronts the library keeper: by what unerring instinct is he to acquire the works his institution ought to have not only for the immediate present but in the more remote future? Sound development of the bookstock is the greatest challenge the librarian faces and it was with this in mind that I pointed out the necessity of his being a bookman through and through. (pp.171-2)

The refrain of 'bookman through and through' is an essential part of Osborn's message in LKB.

As he continues to trace the development of the tradition of great library collections, Osborn mentions with particular emphasis the Library of Congress in Washington. This Library is, he avers, ' the most massively impressive and professionally exciting library to be found anywhere in the democracies' (p175). This statement was no doubt correct in 1959 as it might be in 2002, but the reader is greatly puzzled by what Osborn does not say about the way the Library of Congress became so 'massively impressive'. He fails to mention Herbert Putnam for reasons which may be connected with his praise for Putnam's successor, Archibald MacLeish who appointed in 1940 the Librarian's Committee to look into the processing operations in the Library of Congress. Andrew Osborn was, together with two others, a member of this Committee whose report was not made publicly available by LC until decades later. [4] LKB states that the Librarian's Committee had the task of reporting back to MacLeish, on how to 'upgrade [the Library] after its drastic decline' (p175). It would lead us too far afield to follow up the implications of these words, but those interested are urged to consult the excellent account of these matters in The Nation's Great Library: Herbert Putnam and the Library of Congress, 1899-1939, by Jane Rosenberg. [5] However, Osborn's failure to mention even Putnam's name and his outstanding achievements as a pre-eminent collector of such prizes as the Vollbehr incunabula and the Yudin Slavic collection, to mention merely two from a large number, seems perverse. The reason for highlighting this matter here is that Herbert Putnam's focus on 'organic collections' will concern us more directly when we come to assess Osborn's own influence on collection-building in Australian academic and research libraries.

The motif of libraries having a political significance and being even 'an integral part of our line of defence' (p177) runs through LKB. It is much in line with the Cold War era and the recognition of Soviet advances in space technology, atomic energy and armaments. But although Osborn does not mention Lenin, the latter's clear recognition of the political and scientific role of libraries in the survival of the Soviet state is another example of the mode of thinking of the era. Australia's poor standing in international comparisons (in library matters) is underlined by the statement that 'the great concern for Australians should be that there is no large library in this country at all, let alone any very large one' (p176).

The corollary is then for the University of Sydney to face the challenge 'to see that a large library is developed rapidly in keeping with the character and standing of this great University' (Ibid). The message is encapsulated in the ringing statement: 'Libraries are an index which we can use in the present-day world to test a nation's determination both to survive and to grow in international standing' (p176).

Two additional threads in LKB deserve comment. The first of these is the emphasis on libraries as offering services in addition to collections. This point is repeated in several places, but does not get any extended attention. In practice Osborn as librarian to the University of Sydney made a priority of acquiring multiple copies of textbooks for student use, extended the Library's opening hours, and allowed students access to the stacks in the old Fisher Library. Here he was implementing American practice and is generally believed the first university librarian in Australia to do so. In the new library building he helped design, Osborn provided superior facilities and amenities for student use and in the undergraduate part of the building created a welcoming and studious environment for them. Although it does not seem to have been mentioned by Osborn, the example of the Lamont Undergraduate Library at Harvard (opened in 1949) may have influenced him in this regard. All this led to a marked reduction in the reliance by students on the heavily stretched collections and facilities of the State Library of New South Wales. Fisher Library gained an attractiveness and utility that it had never had for earlier generations of students. [6]

The second thread in LKB is perhaps more tenuous, but even more important. It is the idea of librarians being what Osborn calls 'bookmen'. Different people may have different perceptions of what a bookman is, but Osborn's interpretation of the meaning may be deduced in part from his practice as a collector and as an evaluator and surveyor of collections. [7] His report on the collections of the University of Sydney Library made in 1961 where we might expect explicit guidance on this point is in fact rather disappointing. On the other hand, the 1960 survey he did of New Zealand library resources contains much useful material on what constitutes good library holdings. Indeed, the 1960 Osborn report to the New Zealand Library Association contains unmistakable echoes of LKB.

That Osborn himself had a wide knowledge of scholarly books and of their authors was not surprising in someone who had worked for so long in both the New York Public Library and in the Widener Library at Harvard. But in Sydney his zeal to build up a relatively modest collection to what he saw as a medium-sized one meant that acquisition was done en masse. The vast influx of books caused exactly the problems he was so critical of at LC in 1940: they could not all be processed, and in fact some are still not processed, even in 2002. Some of this material has been described as 'junk', but that is a subjective opinion that needs verification. One man's trash is another's treasure. To quote John Langdon Sibley, one of Harvard's early energetic librarians: 'What is trash to me may be part of the Library which will be the most valuable to another person'. [8]

The idea of 'bookman' seems to be related in some sense to the type of education and educational influences library school students are exposed to. Bookmen are often made by coming under the influence of other bookmen, those professionals who have, in one way or another, acquired the aura of expertise which their fellows acknowledge. Whether library schools are the places to find such people is becoming less and less likely in Australia. Practical work in libraries with the requisite scholarly holdings will, of course, help create bookmen among the staff who have the interest, aptitude and opportunity to gather the experience and bibliographical skills which characterise bookmen. There is something rather haphazard about this process, but there are numerous examples of its success under the right conditions. Osborn is reported by those who worked with him at Sydney to have been keen to foster such skill and competence, but it is not known how great his success has been.

Another way in which the skills of the bookman come to the fore is in the assessment of the adequacy of a specific library's collections. To know the strengths and especially the weaknesses of a collection is what characterises the book expert. Australian scholarly libraries have been the subject of surveys of this kind, sometimes with the help of American specialists, and this might be expected to have had some leavening effect. [9] The famous assessments of the holdings of the National Library of Australia by C A Burmester, who was an officer of the National Library, seem, however, to be unique in Australia with respect to the comprehensive nature of the assessment in four volumes and the character of the annotations Burmester provides. He has established a benchmark for future National Library activities in this regard. As well he created a model for other major research libraries in Australia to follow.

Osborn's insistence on the librarian being 'a bookman through and through' posits the librarian as a person with a particular kind of knowledge which is basic to his or her professionalism. While we may have a general appreciation of what he has in mind, it is difficult to be precise. His remarks in LKB on the nature of the scholarly publishing industry and on the effects of copyright are part of his philosophy of the librarian as bookman. Australian research and academic librarianship has had its share of notable bookmen and even in our time when there is less regard for the 'cult of the book' than in the past, there will remain the need for such people to serve the scholarly collections the nation has painstakingly acquired over the decades.

The concluding section of LKB quotes the views of the then Provost of Harvard University, Paul H Buck, an historian who later became a successful head of the Harvard University Library (1955-1964). Buck gives an elegant, succinct series of statements on the place and value of a university library. In today's world these statements are likely to be regarded as in need of qualification. Of course, they reflect a different era that is radically different in fundamental ways from the one we are familiar with. Building upon the statements by Buck, Osborn's final paragraph builds to a climax. 'What I have said to you tonight is that we must deliberately raise our sights' (p180). Reasons are given for this exhortation and he ends by reiterating a basic message:

I feel a considerable sense of urgency when I say that what could be referred to rather picturesquely in former times as the library keeper's business has now suddenly come into prominence as an index of a university's or a nation's determination to achieve and survive. (p180)

From today's vantage point, LKB still has the ability to command attention, but in many respects it is now badly outdated. The philosophy of librarianship, especially as regards collection-building, is now in disarray. Indeed, it may be found in retrospect that little that is new has been written on the subject in the last several decades. Certainly the idea that Osborn reiterated that librarians must be bookmen through and through, and that means being collectors, would not find too much enthusiasm in many quarters. The spirit of the times has changed, but has it advanced? Our final section will turn again to these issues.

Osborn as collection-builder at Sydney University

It is particularly through his collection-building zeal that Andrew Osborn electrified the University of Sydney and the Australian university library sphere in general. He sought books in whatever way he could; he went out after them in a way that was unusual for the time in Sydney. He made exceptional use of his American contacts and experience to tap into duplicates and exchange materials in a variety of institutions. Gift and exchange materials were acquired in massive quantities. He was as well an enthusiastic purchaser of second-hand material, scholarly libraries of academics, and of choice collections formed by specialised collectors of all colours. He was adept at networking with those in the book world and the learned professions from whom he might expect donations, support and inside information, all useful in his objective of building up the library's holdings at a dramatic tempo. He may also be seen as a guiding spirit for the founding of the Friends of the Fisher Library as a supporter group. [10] Osborn was once amusingly described as being intent on having a Widener Library of his own in Sydney by 'about next Thursday fortnight'. [11]

Because Osborn was himself a bookman, able to converse on equal terms with other bookmen, he quickly gained the confidence of many collectors whose response to his charm is well attested by the materials entrusted to him. Inevitably, this feverish collecting style was uneven in the quality of what was acquired. At the same time, he dramatically raised the consciousness and level of training of the staff he employed to appreciate the goals he had set himself and the University of Sydney Library. Osborn's pedagogical skills seem an area worth exploring more fully than will be attempted here. In sum, all his efforts and zeal could not fail to bear a rich and immediate harvest.

Osborn stated in print that at the end of 1958 the University Library had 430&nsp;000 volumes centrally recorded, adding 'however the figure will be appreciably higher when material in the whole of the University is included'. [12] This figure was the highest for any Australian university at the time, but it was far from respectable in the type of international comparison Osborn wished to draw. What became more important is the rate at which the library collection grew over the Osborn period, and thereafter. Harrison Bryan had given detailed data in an important article entitled 'Collection Development in Australian University Libraries 1949-1980'. [13] In this article the explosive impact of the 'Osborn phenomenon' is, of course, singled out, and the overall effect of the unprecedented growth of the University of Sydney Library is analysed. By the time Osborn departed in 1962 the collection rose to some 774 000 volumes. [14] Osborn had set in motion a snowball that had impact on university libraries in Australia as a class. But what began with such flair proved unsustainable at Sydney University over the next decade. A slower, more controlled level of growth set in, immeasurably enhanced by the sunburst of the Osborn phenomenon. But many questions, quietly ticking away without too many observers being aware of their existence, were also left unresolved.

It is now opportune to consider more directly the collection-building example of Herbert Putnam, the man Osborn fails unaccountably to mention in LKB. No American librarian in the twentieth century could be unaware of how Putnam, librarian of Congress 1899-1939, transformed that Library into one of the world's greatest. Of course, Putnam has a vision of a 'national library' to guide him with the political, social and educational correlations that belong to that ideal. A national library as the leader in the nation's library system was something Putnam consistently espoused. Putnam's annual reports to Congress give copious information on these activities and the general philosophy of librarianship that underpinned his vision. For this reason they remain indispensable source material to the historian and student.

Reading the annual reports that Putnam produced over the decades, the reader is struck by his references to the need to build the library's collections in an organic, 'consecutive' manner. Putnam castigated the collections at LC when he assumed office in 1899 as 'inorganic', that is, as haphazard, fortuitous and lacking any rationale. [15] Organic collections are those, we might suppose, that grow out of a core that is seen in relation to cognate subjects. Organic collections are organic insofar as they relate to a larger conception of what the objectives are that the library is seeking to attain. Whatever we might decide is meant by 'organic' in relation to library acquisitions, most of us would probably agree that the term implies controlled growth with conscious objectives in mind, that is, not haphazard growth. The term does not seem to have been much used in library discussions of collection growth, although the Conspectus methodology can be seen as implementing the idea of organic growth. The term 'organic' seems more familiar in archival practice than in librarianship. The term also implies, or indeed requires, that the librarians in charge of the process possess the requisite level of education (formal and informal), motivation and experience to make sense of the notion of 'organic collections'. LC under Putnam had such officers and also created them in younger colleagues. One could say the same of the British Library where staff expertise was at least as important as excellent catalogues and guides to the holdings.

If the vision of LC as the national collection of the United States has different parameters from those adopted by Osborn in his rapid expansion of the collections at the University of Sydney, there is certainly a fair area of overlap since many aspects were shared in common; unbounded size and universalism in collecting goals are two examples. Sydney University Library began, for instance, to collect foreign language materials (eg Russian) in significant quantity in the Osborn era. The foreign language holdings of that Library were mediocre, if not merely token until then. Osborn's own linguistic skills may have played a role in this regard. However, the aspect of quality seems to have been subordinate in Osborn's practice to the need simply to acquire the broadest base from which quality might one day spring. What is the relationship between size and quality of collection? Gigantism in libraries is in most cases a twentieth-century phenomenon, but in the present century this phenomenon may be seen with reservations that were seldom voiced in earlier times.

The three great models of library development that influenced Australian libraries were those of the British Museum Library (influential especially with state libraries), the Library of Congress (influential with the National Library of Australia), and the great American university and research library tradition which moulded Osborn's views. Each of these models is associated with huge and splendid collections acquired often over very long periods and representing an enormous economic investment. Their maintenance also represents a sizable continuing investment which is now beginning to be problematic in most of them.

One should not overlook that some of the world's great libraries are great not primarily because of size, but because of the choiceness of their collections. Small highly polished gems are valuable too. Such libraries are mostly specialised in their scope, have constant and consistent objectives, and staff who understand and study their collections. They are libraries with traditions which are themselves organic. We rarely hear of such libraries discarding books and serials because of 'space needs' as is nowadays the tendency in lesser institutions. The heresy that if a book has not been 'used', it is not worth keeping in a library is not likely to find much acceptance in such institutions. Great libraries traditionally also regarded themselves as archives of the book, but the revelations in Nicholson Baker's Double Fold show that both the Library of Congress and the British Library have been discarding copyright deposit books. [16] This is an indication of how far the old beliefs and practices are being undermined.

Australia has recently been said not to have one university that could rank in the world's first one hundred in point of quality. Does this apply equally to the university libraries in Australia? To attempt to answer this question is to enter a minefield where the hardy will not quickly venture. The whole area of the aims and methods of tertiary education, the claims of 'research' capacity and needs and so on must be considered yet again in tackling this matter. So many efforts have been made in the past to look at Australia's tertiary education in this broad sense that we might really expect more of the same. Harrison Bryan's 1971 article on rationalising of research collections in Australia, which did not see real possibilities of serious success, is still valid. [17] He states:

We are forced back inevitably, it seems to two propositions. First, rationalization of future in-depth collecting of teaching (and hence research) is agreed to by, or imposed on, universities. Second, rationalization of existing in-depth collecting is possible only as working agreements on specialization within fields are arrived at among academics.

These words do not promise much hope as things are presently constituted in the tertiary sector.

The ideal aim of university and research libraries is to reach a state of self-sufficiency. This is now clearly unattainable and forces them to enter into co-operative arrangements on varying scales. The failure of the much-discussed concept of a Distributed National Collection in Australia did not come as any great surprise since its nature seemed so contradictory and ill-defined.

So long as universities feel empowered to study any field of knowledge, perhaps heavily reliant on overseas materials, their libraries must do their utmost to satisfy faculty and student needs. Postgraduate programs need materials of an even higher standard. The panacea of online databases, ebooks and online resources is not yet really the answer that has been hoped. Libraries are still getting larger, but in newer ways, with space needs for terminals, online tutorials and the like absorbing increasing funding.

In his excellent history of the National Library's collections, C A Burmester starts by pointing out that the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library (the forerunner to the National Library of Australia) 'was established on the lines of the world-famed Library of Congress: [with the aim to create] such a library as shall be worthy of the Australian Nation; the home of the literature, not of a State, or of a period, but of the world, and of all time'. [18] These words have a fine ringing tone, but are in essence a folie de grandeur. Moreover, they are utterly fanciful for a country such as Australia.

Is there an Osborn legacy?

Striking as was Andrew Osborn's contribution to the rapid growth and importance of the University of Sydney Library, it is not exactly easy to speak of an Osborn legacy. Why is this? LKB was an eloquent and sustained plea for Australia to move from a clearly inferior position on the (American) scale of university libraries to a middle-level one. The argumentation of LKB was marked by the influences of Osborn's long association with, and intimate knowledge of, US practices and ideas. Lodewycks writes of Osborn's 'importation of American concepts of academic library provision' but does reveal in a suggestive but tantalising note that his 'frank discussion' with Vice Chancellor Stephen Roberts of Sydney University 'about the conditions of the Sydney librarianship' that the situation created by Osborn was problematic. (Lodewycks was invited to Sydney as a possible candidate to succeed the departed Osborn. [19]) Osborn tried to some extent to transpose some American concepts and ideas to Australian conditions with a limited success. If we might speak of an Osborn 'model' of library management, we cannot say that it was a model easily replicated by others since it was hard to separate it from the personality of its progenitor. The personality was indeed the driving factor, but it was at times an impediment as well since it could call forth negative reactions and hence opposition.

The changed world since LKB was delivered makes us aware how strongly Osborn's line of argument depended on political, technological and educational factors predominant for a period in the United States. The hopes raised by the Murray Committee did indeed lead to massive changes and many innovations, but whether they matched Osborn's own expectations is open to speculation.

The Osborn model was noteworthy for its almost total neglect of economic and cost-benefit realities. Indeed, one finds too little discussion in Australian library discourse about the economic implications of library acquisition policies. The National Library of Australia is now obliged to cancel in what appear to be massive ways serials because funds are no longer sufficient. One can only ask: should it have been acquiring them in the first place? (Soviet Union regional newspapers are a good example of this.) If the policies that C A Burmester alluded to: the National Library being 'the home of the literature, not of a State, or of a period, but of the world, and of all time' is taken seriously, then we see how ill-advised and overweening such policies can prove when their unstated preconditions cease to be available. Such policies may indeed distract from what is possible and desirable; but they do have a psychologically soothing affect. Technology has made it more possible for us to access the knowledge about the existence of resources 'of the world and of all time'. The online catalogues of the world's great libraries, the online databases of OCLC and so on, provide this information. If one's research needs encompass the regional newspapers of provincial cities of the USSR, it is likely that one will never find them in many locations outside the former Soviet Union. Collection building is a balancing of priorities; at its best it is a policy of organic, not haphazard, growth, with consistency and continuity being the sustaining virtues. But no one can hope for such qualities to be of indefinite duration.

Andrew Osborn's contribution was a fruitful one because, especially with its new building, it transformed a pedestrian library into a criterion for other university libraries in Australia. The adoption of such a clearly American and not a British style disturbed some cherished traditional values in Australian academe which may today seem hard to credit. This was unsettling for the Sydney University administration which did not always approve of Osborn's methods and his occasionally cavalier treatment of invoices and records. The new wine he brought was very powerful and not altogether welcome, but it was needed. Who else could have provided it? It would lead us too far afield to compare the depressing experiences of K A Lodewycks at the Library of the University of Melbourne with those of Osborn at Sydney University at about the same period. However, that comparison would, it is suggested, highlight the divergences between the traditional British academic library values and the American ones in Australia.

It has been said of A D Osborn that his long sojourn in the United States made him more American than Australian. There is no denying the enormous impact made on him by his close association with Keyes D Metcalf, first at the New York Public Library, then later at Harvard University Library. Indeed, one can do no better than study the latter's autobiography Random Recollections of an Anachronism in order to get some insight into the forces that moulded Osborn as much as Metcalf. [20] To read that work is to understand the strong authoritarian strand in Osborn as well as his high professional goals. But when we review Andrew Osborn's career and the very large range of changes which have marked Australia since his time, it is difficult to make out clear lines of argument when it comes to talking about any 'legacy', except perhaps in the matter of library architecture. We should, however, recall that K D Metcalf as a consultant had a strong hand in the design of the new Fisher Library so that the American influence was not wholly Osborn's.

LKB expressed a credo, and Osborn's considerable willpower (tinged at times with more than a dose of ruthlessness) and his leadership skills ignored any impediments to realising his objectives. In some ways he proved far stronger medicine than the still largely unimaginative administrative framework of the University of Sydney could comfortably manage, much less restrain. Osborn's early and unexpected departure from Sydney after a mere four years in office (1959-1962) caused much speculation at the time, but the fact that the University of Sydney conferred an honorary doctorate on him in 1978 indicates the healing powers of time.

One may ask whether we should look to the impressive development of the National Library of Australia from the 1960s onwards for traces of the Osborn legacy? Sir Harold White and Andrew Osborn were alike in drive and vision and were in some senses rivals from their early professional years. They knew each other as schoolboys in Melbourne and, of course, both worked at the same time in the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library. To attempt to answer such a question requires research going far beyond this writer's capacity, but it is work well worth doing, even in an age where, as Gertrude Himmelfarb reminds us, anything that happened before yesterday is regarded an 'antediluvian'. [21] It may be exaggerating to see a direct link between the Osborn legacy and the subsequent development of the National Library, but it is not hard to perceive the same spirit and outlook at work. The historians of the National Library will, we hope, one day elucidate these matters for us.

'Fled is that vision'

Andrew Osborn's contribution to the Australian research library landscape was undoubtedly of supreme importance in its time. No one could suggest otherwise. But it is also true that his influence should have been much greater and more lasting than it proved to be. Being firmly convinced of his own correctness in library matters, even extending to national questions, Osborn was not happy to find disagreement when he suggested initiatives. His strong tendency to transplant American ideas and practices to Australia was not always fruitful and led to some serious disputes that soured personal relations. Those problems must be recognised, but will not be gone into further here except to quote a statement by D H Borchardt, another librarian of strong character and will-power. [22]

As far as CAUL is concerned [Osborn's] first appearance at a meeting of the still rather informal gathering of university librarians set the foundation for the animosity that seems to have surrounded most of his dealings with his Australian colleagues. [23]

What was above all powerful in the Osborn phenomenon were the broadness of his vision, his strong orientation towards positive library service to users, and the values he endorsed. In short, we note his concern for the 'big picture.' The Library Keeper's Business shows Osborn at the outset of his Australian career. The great promise is obvious and the persuasive voice is very appealing. Osborn, like his close contemporary, Sir Harold White, and one might also mention John Metcalfe, was larger than life. Their successors, all able men and women, did not for the most part have the same forcefulness and presence. There is no disrespect to these successors to find them of a smaller format: they would have been the first to acknowledge the truth of this observation, one suspects. Not many in the library profession can be said to be a fascinating personality in the way Andrew Osborn was. He was also in some ways a daunting personality, but always an achiever and shaker.

It will soon be 50 years since LKB was delivered: it is to be hoped that the University of Sydney Library will mark the occasion to celebrate the Osborn phenomenon. If we judge him, as I believe we should, from his strongest points, we see what a man of superior qualities can contribute to the wider objectives of librarianship and to the raising of standards of collection-building. Whilst his day is past and cannot be repeated, he calls on us to be professionally alive to great issues, to know what our values are, and to go beyond the narrow confines of individual libraries. In 1959 he urged his audience to raise its sights. It is a message that is still valid and a re-reading of LKB continues to remain worth the time of librarians and scholars in Australia. The Osborn vision is fled, but hopefully the Osborn example can inspire others to fresh insights into where the future of Australia's research and scholarly libraries lies, and perhaps even more importantly, will encourage us to examine what kind of library institutions we are creating for our successors. All this seems an unappealing task in the present situation of Australian librarianship where values have sometimes so little real place and professional leadership finds it hard to make a lasting mark. What are the norms we should apply to Australian scholarly collection-building in an economic, social and political context so unpromising as the first decade of the new century seems? A fresh look at A D Osborn's ideas may provide some of the stimulus and energy needed to provide new answers to these unresolved questions.

Acknowledgments: Thanks are expressed for help and comments to Pamela Borchardt (for permission to quote from the autobiography of D H Borchardt), Eugenie Greig, Owen E Slight, and Dr Neil A Radford. Staff of the University of New South Wales Library are thanked for their assistance as well.

Notes

1. Report of the [Murray] Committee on Australian Universities (Parliamentary Paper 12 of 1958) Canberra Government Printer (Chairman Sir Keith Murray)
2. A D Osborn 'The Library Keeper's Business' Arts: The Proceedings of the Sydney University Arts Association vol 1 no 3 September 1959 pp167-180
3. M J Ruggles and R C Swank Soviet Libraries and Librarianship: Report of the Visit of the Delegation of U S Librarians to the Soviet Union May-June 1961 under the U S -Soviet Cultural Exchange Agreement Chicago American Library Association 1962
4. Report of the Librarian's Committee to the Librarian of Congress on the Processing Operations in the Library of Congress by P N Rice A D Osborn [and] C B Joeckel Chairman. June 15 1940. [Washington Library of Congress 1940] 303 leaves processed. LC agreed to 'declassify' this Report at the suggestion of Associate Professor Michael Gorman of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to whom I owe my copy.
5. J A Rosenberg The Nation's Great Library: Herbert Putnam and the Library of Congress, 1899-1939 Urbana Ill University of Illinois Press 1993
6. J P Whyte 'Direct Service to Readers' in H Bryan and G Greenwood (eds) Design for Diversity: Library Services for Higher Education and Research in Australia Brisbane University of Queensland Press 1977 pp271-312 p289
7. Andrew Osborn was commissioned to conduct a survey of New Zealand Libraries in 1960. The Report of 70 pages contains much of interest to students of Osborn's career. See A D Osborn New Zealand Library Resources. Report of a Survey made for the New Zealand Library Association under the Auspices of the Carnegie Corporation of New York Wellington NZ New Zealand Library Association 1960
8. The words quoted come from Sibley's private diary 'after being rebuked that the government documents he was begging only lumbered the [Harvard] Library.' See K E Carpenter The First 350 Years of the Harvard University Library. Description of an Exhibition Cambridge Mass Harvard University Library 1986 p86
9. See R B Downs Australian and New Zealand Library Resources Melbourne: W D Thorpe 1979; M F Tauber Resources of Australian Libraries. Summary Report 1961 for AACOBS Canberra AACOBS 1963
10. Osborn's name is not directly mentioned as the founder of the Friends of the University of Sydney Library, generally called The Friends of the Fisher. A membership leaflet issued by the Friends of the University of Sydney Library states 'in 1961 a small group of Sydney book collectors and bookish academics got together and worked out details of a new association, designed to help the [Library] buy more books...' Jean Stone's biography of her husband Walter Stone states (p333) that 'With Sir John Ferguson he founded the Friends of the University of Sydney Library...' (J Stone The Passionate Bibliophile: The Story of Walter Stone, Australian Bookman Extraordinaire Sydney Angus and Robertson 1988)
11. H Bryan 'Growing Together - and Living Together: Problems in the Concurrent Development of University and State Reference Libraries' in Library Resources to the Nation. Proceedings of the 11th Biennial Conference 1961 of the Library Association of Australia 1961 pp36-45 See pp41-2
12. A D Osborn 'Development of the University Library' University of Sydney Gazette April 1959 p244
13. H Bryan 'Collection Development in Australian University Libraries, 1949 to 1980' in H Bryan and J Horacek (eds) Australian Academic Libraries in the Seventies. Essays in Honour of Dietrich Borchardt St Lucia: University of Queensland Press 1984 pp33-63
14. There is generally some doubt about the statistics of library holdings, but Harrison Bryan gives the figure of 774,556 accessioned items as at 1962. There were in addition a large number, perhaps a quarter of a million volumes awaiting addition to the collections. See, for example, H Bryan No Gray Profession. Reminiscences of a Career in Australian Libraries (Adelaide Auslib Press 1994 p50). See also reference 13. For another viewpoint on the growth of the collections of the University Library see 'Building Library Collections for Research', by W D Thorn in J P Whyte and N A Radford (eds) An Enthusiasm for Libraries: Essays in Honour of Harrison Bryan, with a Rejoinder by Harrison Bryan Melbourne: Ancora Press 1988 pp99-113. In 2002 the University of Sydney Library expects to add the five millionth volume to its collections.
15. R L Cope 'The Rise of the Library of Congress: Lessons for Australia?' The Australian University vol 2 no 2 July 1964 pp152-161
16. R L Cope 'Trusting Librarians Too Blindly? A review-article' [on Nicholson Baker's Double Fold] Australian Library Journal vol 50 no 3 August 2001 pp211-227
17. H Bryan 'Rationalization of Australian Library Holdings in History' The Australian University vol 9 no 3 1971 pp222-236 p230
18. C A Burmester 'History of the National Library's Collections' in C A Burmester (comp) National Library of Australia: Guide to the Collections, vol 4 Canberra National Library of Australia 1982 pp ix-xxvi
19. K A Lodewycks The Funding of Wisdom Revelations of a Library's Quarter Century Melbourne Spectrum Publications 1982
20. K D Metcalf Random Recollections of an Anachronism, or, Seventy-five Years of Library Work New York Readex Books 1982
21. G Himmelfarb The De-Moralization of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values New York Knopf 1995 p249
22. R L Cope 'Borchardt in Retrospect' Australian Academic & Research Libraries vol 29 no 2 June 1998 pp77-80
23. D H Borchardt Through a Clouded Mirror. Reminiscences of a Working Life Melbourne Privately printed 1993

Russell Cope was NSW Parliamentary librarian, 1952-1991, and after retirement, Visiting Fellow and Visiting Associate in the School of Library, Information and Archive Studies at the Unviersity of New South Wales. He writes and reviews for the Australian Library Journal and Australian Academic and Research Libraries. E-mail: rcope@oze-mail.com.au.nospam (please remove the '.nospam' from the address).