The Australian Library Journal
volume 50 issue 3

Larry Amey

Manuscript received April 2001

Introduction
How big an impact did the report have? Sir Grenfell Price, at the opening of the building of the National Library of Australia in 1968, said the Munn Pitt survey led to a 'revolution in Australian libraries'[5]. Eventually, authorities took to referring to Australian library history as AM and PM, that is, the bettering influence on library provision between ante-Munn and post-Munn. Norman Horrocks in his study, 'The Carnegie Corporation of New York and its impact on library development in Australia' comments that 'the impact of this report at the time was tremendous'.[6] Indeed, it is undoubtedly true that no library report before or after in the history of Australia has made such an impression.

How did this come to be? How did the Munn-Pitt Report manage to generate so much publicity? The success of the survey in reaching the newspapers, and connecting with the public and opinion-makers, was the result of several interconnected elements. These include the character and substance of the report itself, the delivery strategy for the release of the report, and the strategic alliances formed by its supporters. Each of these factors is described below.

'A stimulating indictment'
The report, which was largely written by Munn, was an eminently quotable document. Munn had a caustic turn of phrase that proved irresistible to reporters. As Horrocks notes, '... the report was written in a vivid style which lent itself to editorial quotation'[7].

Many of Munn's phrases have rung down through the history of Australian librarianship and are known by heart by admirers even today. For example, in describing the State Library of Queensland, the report concluded that:

Anybody who wishes to take away a favourable impression of their city's State Library should not make the mistake of entering it[8].

Supporting detail for this critique was helpfully provided:

The interior of the library is a barn-like room, poorly lighted, badly in need of painting, and shabby and uninviting in every feature[9].

The librarian's office is so small that when he has more than one visitor they must sit in tandem fashion[10].

In order to preserve some new books from use, the librarian has placed them in reserve on the upper floor where they are not available to casual readers[11].

And to ensure that the point was made:

The entire book collection shows every evidence of financial starvation[12].

Further ammunition was reserved for the country institute library system. Perhaps the most quoted statement in the report declared:

It is pathetic to observe the pride and complacency with which local communities exhibit wretched little institutes which have long since become cemeteries of old and forgotten books[13].

Another summary judgment which was picked up in many headlines was:

As a whole, Australia was better provided with local libraries in 1880 than it is today[14].

The report was also written in a manner that was both critical and specific. Individual institutions were named and their faults and weaknesses identified. This allowed - and encouraged - city and country papers to compare their own perceptions of local library service with those made by Munn-Pitt.

In this regard, it is interesting to note reporters' personal opinions surfacing in their stories on the report. It is likely, of course, that reporters were heavy users of libraries and well aware of their weaknesses. In any case, they were keen to put the boot in with their own criticisms of their local libraries to reinforce those of Munn-Pitt.

For example, reporting in the Brisbane Telegraph on the shortcomings of the Brisbane Public Library raised so pointedly by Munn-Pitt, the reporter could not resist adding that 'they might well have added that only two works on agricultural chemistry are so hopelessly out of date that no second-hand bookseller would look at them'[15].

The same reporter, warming to the subject, goes on to suggest that:

Those who know the library will perhaps be inclined to consider that the report lets it down lightly. It might have said, for instance, that much more of the shelf-space is occupied by an accumulation of useless and insanitary literary lumber, heavy with the grease of years, that it is possible to find book after book in the reference section which has been mutilated by the ripping out of pages ... and that there are extensive gaps marking the places where volumes have been stolen. Without any injustice they might have mentioned that any bacteriologist, on beholding the variegated cross-sections of humanity infesting the building and the condition of the floors and furniture, would throw up his hands in delighted horror[16].

Similar commentary surfaced in many of the newspapers accounts.

However, the hidden strength of the Munn-Pitt Report has been correctly identified by Horrocks to be the open, plain-spoken, straightforward way in which the report presented its message. He comments:

It was 'par excellence', a document which could be clearly understood and followed by lay readers. It did not concentrate on detailed examinations of professional techniques or the minutia of technical operations. Instead, there was a clear-cut exposure of the faults in the body politic and with it the challenge to try to remedy them. ...the report remained in the words of one of the lay participants ... 'The Ark of the Covenant' providing the local point to which all could rally[17].

Wielding the sword
If the Munn-Pitt Report was the Excalibur in the fight for library reform, then Frank Tate was surely its King Arthur. Tate was there before Munn-Pitt, and he was there after Munn-Pitt. He had a clear vision for the future of libraries and he understood how to promote the report to those ends.

Tate was the director of Education for Victoria for twenty-six years. On retirement in 1928, he turned his considerable energies to the promotion and improvement of libraries. He became president of the Library Association of Victoria in 1929, and through his office wrote to the Carnegie Corporation requesting that it fund a survey of Australian libraries. This overture was reinforced by a visit Tate made to the Corporation headquarters in New York with his colleague, Dr K S Cunningham.

Tate came away much impressed with what he found in the United States, and during his visit, he made an influential friend, Frank Keppel, the president of the Corporation. This connection would prove to be vital in the future promotion of the recommendations made in the report.

In 1933 Tate wrote again to the Corporation with a formal proposal for a survey. This time action quickly ensued. When Munn arrived in 1934, Tate accompanied him and his partner Pitt at the outset of their field trips, 'providing background information and interpretation of the Australian scene'[18].

Even before the report was written, Tate had great hopes for its success. He understood from the outset the necessity of promotion. Writing to Keppel, he noted:

Our task will begin when the report is issued, for an immense amount of formative work will have to be done before we establish a library consciousness among our people[19].

Tate knew he would need help in establishing a 'library consciousness.' He wrote 'I hope we shall be able to find in each State a sufficient number of forceful men to do the necessary propaganda work[20].' Tate proved a master at attracting such 'forceful men' to the cause.

Although the report was completed, vetted, and the introduction by Tate added by December 1934, its supporters withheld publication while an effective delivery strategy was planned. It was decided to release the report after the Christmas vacation in order to take advantage of the usual lacuna in news which occurs at that time. Not only was the post-Christmas period a traditionally quiet time for news, when a provocative report might command attention, but the actual release date was chosen with great precision. 26 January 1935 was a Saturday. A perfect day to fill the newspapers' hunger for weekend copy. It was also Australia Day, when editors are pressured to find hard news to balance the piety of conventional copy run on the annual holiday.

Copies of the report were issued to the press in advance of the publication date to allow time for editors to read and consider its findings. An embargo was imposed in order to give each newspaper an equal opportunity to break the story.

Simultaneous with publication, senior public librarians, representing South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria, and the Commonwealth, issued a public statement in support of the report.

In all, the launch showed considerable marketing sophistication, and this was immediately rewarded in the energetic take-up of the story by the news media.

With the completion and publication of the report, Tate began the campaign to see its recommendations acted upon. As the founding president of the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), he arranged for the organisation to publish the report. Most importantly, Tate wrote a long, persuasive introduction to the report in which he made 'the very points which became the rallying cries of the campaign'[21] for free libraries and professional, educated librarians.

Meanwhile, Tate recruited one of the most effective 'forceful men' to carry on the momentum established on publication of the survey. The story of how Geoffrey Remington, a solicitor in private practice in Sydney, was made part of the team has been well described by John Metcalfe, another of Tate's important lieutenants[22]. Metcalfe's account gives an insight into Tate's drive and personality. Remington had helped organise the Australian Institute of Political Science (AIPS). In 1935, labouring under the misapprehension that ACER held the key to the Carnegie riches, he approached Tate looking for support for AIPS. Tate sitting in front of a pile of newly printed Munn-Pitt Reports, shot back, 'So you want to aid poor suffering humanity do you?' Remington, no doubt slightly taken aback, abashedly replied, 'Something of the sort.' Tate then slapped a copy of the Munn-Pitt Report into the lawyer's hands and commanded, 'Well, get your teeth into this.' Remington did, and eventually went on to form the Free Library Movement (FLM) with Tate in Victoria. It had a strong influence on all the States.

Tate was able to use his connections with the Carnegie Corporation in other ways that benefited the drive to improve libraries. Carnegie funds were provided in 1934-35 to allow prominent librarians to travel abroad. Meltcalfe, Pitt and several others visited abroad under this scheme and returned reinforced in their desire to advance the improvements suggested by the report.

Finally, Tate arranged for the establishment and funding of the most influential advocacy organisation of all, the blandly named, Library Group (LG). The LG was founded in 1935 as an arm of ACER sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation. It was made up of the chief librarians of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia state libraries, as well as the Commonwealth parliamentary librarian, Cunningham. Tate was the chair. The LG was instrumental in setting up the Australia Institute of Librarians (AIL), which became the means to advance another major recommendation, the professionalisation of librarians.

The unflagging efforts of Tate, Remington, Metcalfe and others, armed with the insights and recommendations of the report, resulted in gradual, cumulative changes to the Australian library world that were remarkable in scope and breadth.

Lessons learned ... and not learned
The report provided an early example of a well-orchestrated public relations campaign. Unfortunately, it was an example that was often neglected by librarians. The chances of a major library initiative gaining similar public notice today seem remote. Ironically, this may be, in part, because the profession has become too professionalised. Studies today tend to be written by librarians, for librarians. Reports are often written in a cold, technical fashion, intended for the eyes of fellow specialists, or are clothed in the restraints of academic publication. As such, they lack the common appeal and the bite of the Munn-Pitt Report. Put in modern marketing terms, such reports often fail to 'identify an audience' and pitch their message accordingly. Munn had the audience clearly in his sights and served up his message with brio.

Another contemporary marketing maxim is summarised as 'KISS': keep it simple, stupid! The key recommendations of the Munn-Pitt Report were easily identified by its lay readers:

1. to establish tax-supported municipal 'free libraries'; and
   
   
2. to strengthen and extend librarianship by professionalising the training and registration of librarians.
   
   

This straightforward approach is often neglected in today's professional reporting.

Finally, the report benefited from the involvement of laypersons, those outside the profession. While it may be argued that there were only a handful of 'professional' librarians (as the term is understood today) in Australia at the time, it is also true that supporters such as Tate and Remington, working outside of their established expertise, brought important contacts and political nous to bear in the campaign for change. They were powerful allies. Today, our own professionalism may sometimes isolate us from the political process, and from those who are experienced in working in the process.

It may be time to ground our writing in a way that can be readily understood by public readers; to target the public more often and more directly; to use advanced marketing approaches to deliver our messages; and to form broad strategic alliances with those best placed to further our causes.

Just as was done in 1935.

References
1. R Munn and E R Pitt. Australian libraries: a survey of conditions and suggestions for their improvement. (Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research, 1935).

2. A Bundy. Widened horizons: the rural school community libraries of South Australia. (Adelaide: Auslib Press, 1997), ch 2.

3. N Horrocks. The Carnegie Corporation of New York and its impact on library development in Australia. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 1971, 229.

4. Untitled collection of newspaper clippings on the Munn-Pitt Report by the Carnegie Corporation of New York [undated]. Access to this collection provided by the owner, Dr Norman Horrocks.

5. Sir A Grenfell Price. 'The Opening of the first building of the National Library of Australia on 15 August, 1968' in Australian Library Journal (1968), 259.

6. Horrocks, 214.

7. Ibid, 229.

8. Munn-Pitt, 61.

9. Ibid

10. Ibid

11. Ibid

12. Ibid, 62.

13. Ibid, 24.

14. Ibid, 23.

15. Telegraph (Brisbane), 26 January 1935.

16. Ibid

17. Horrocks, 754.

18. Ibid, 219.

19. Letter, Frank Tate to F P Keppel, 20 June 1934.

20. Letter, Frank Tate to John Russell Jr, 25 June 1934.

21. D Whitehead 'AM [ante Munn] and PM [post Munn]: the Munn-Pitt report in context' Australian Library Journal (February 1981), 8.

22. J Metcalfe 'Ralph Munn and Australia', Australian Library Journal (May 1975), 141.