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The Australian Library JournalGreat minds: Metcalfe, McColvin and Public libraries in AustraliaDavid J Jones The author reviews the relationship between his two protagonists when they met in Australia on the occasion of McColvin's visit in 1946, and later, when Metcalfe was in London. The quality and warmth of the hospitality extended on either hand was curiously asymmetric, which possibly reflects the expectations of the host at the time. Neither man was a stereotype, and each had strong and individual opinions. And neither was a 'prophet without honour...'. McColvin's visit was more critical to the interests of his host, Metcalfe, than when the positions of host and visitor were reversed, which may account for the asymmetry referred to above. The author infers that in the end, Metcalfe was not prepared to honour McColvin's contribution, and indeed, McColvin himself did not rate it highly. Manuscript received May 2005 This is a refereed article PrologueOn 8 November 1946 Lionel McColvin, librarian of the City of Westminster in London, long-serving honorary secretary of the Library Association and Britain's most prominent librarian, began a three-month visit to Australia which resulted in a substantial report on Australian libraries. Welcoming him at the Rose Bay flying boat base in Sydney was John Metcalfe, Principal librarian of the Public Library of New South Wales, the recently elected president of the Australian Institute of Librarians and Australia's leading librarian. The two knew of each other's work and had met briefly 11 years earlier when Metcalfe was visiting London. Now Metcalfe would help his colleague settle in, albeit briefly, in Sydney, inviting him to his home in Dover Heights and obtaining ration coupons to buy replacements for the Englishman's worn clothing, which was in any case too heavy for the Australian summer. Despite a later reputation for sartorial insouciance, Metcalfe always knew that it was important to dress for the occasion. For McColvin was due to meet ministers, senior bureaucrats, mayors, councillors and others of influence across the length and breadth of Australia. Whilst the itinerary was being finalised, the two men, good talkers both, began an exchange of ideas and a flow of contrasting viewpoints which would continue for virtually the whole time McColvin was in New South Wales. It was a cordial clash of intellects and a happy beginning to the visit, but it might easily have been very different. Right up to the moment when McColvin stepped onto Australian soil, Australian librarians had been squabbling bitterly about the way the visit had been arranged. On that Friday evening, waiting to welcome McColvin, was the most outspoken critic of all: John Metcalfe. A visit is contemplatedMcColvin's invitation had been the result a convoluted chain of events, beginning with the sudden death of W C Baud, principal librarian of the Public Library of Victoria, in October 1945. Baud's obvious successor, Colin McCallum, was reluctant to accept the position. The Trustees therefore hit upon the idea of asking a suitable American librarian to act as principal librarian while a local was being groomed to take over. They asked K S Cunningham, Director of the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), to make some inquiries. A well-travelled educationist with many American contacts, Cunningham had been heavily involved in library matters for many years. He was one of only three honorary members of the Australian Institute of Librarians (AIL) and chaired the committee of state and national librarians known as the Library Group.[1] Cunningham knew that Kenneth Binns, librarian of the Commonwealth National Library and Library Group member, was about to visit the United States and the United Kingdom. [2] Cunningham asked him to find out if the Carnegie Corporation of New York would sponsor an American librarian to help out at the Public Library of Victoria. The Corporation was however still in the process of determining its post-war program of assistance to British Commonwealth countries and Binns was politely told that they would prefer not to be involved.[3] He then talked with Ralph Munn of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, who continued to take a keen interest in Australian library matters long after his 1935 Report.[4] They concluded that it would be far better to invite a British librarian to help the Trustees of the Public Library of Victoria out of their predicament and also to visit the other Australian states.[5] It was not just Cunningham who had asked a favour of Binns during his travels. The Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) had asked him to keep an eye out for a distinguished overseas guest to give a series of talks on national radio. In the United States Binns drew another blank: his first choice, Archibald MacLeish, poet and former librarian of Congress, was not available. But when Binns was in London he heard that Lionel McColvin, librarian of the City of Westminster, was a frequent broadcaster and was interested in drama and music. Binns immediately thought that he could kill two birds with one stone. He approached the British Council about a visit to Australia by McColvin, but only in a tentative fashion - such visits needed the approval of a committee which the Australian prime minister, Ben Chifley, had established.[6] Change of planThe British Council agreed to send McColvin if his expenses in Australia could be met locally. Binns had not expected this, but approached some likely sources when he returned home. The Public Library of Victoria Trustees offered £200 for McColvin to undertake a survey of Victorian libraries - they no longer needed a fill-in principal librarian, as McCallum had in the meantime decided to take the job after all. The University of Melbourne offered £100 for McColvin to deliver some lectures. Informally Sir John Morris, a friend of Binns, promised to ask his Board of Trustees at the Tasmanian Public Library for £100. Cunningham offered £50 on behalf of the ACER. After a personal approach by Binns, Prime Minister Chifley cautiously agreed to provide £100, on condition that the Commonwealth would not actually have to organise the visit. Binns suggested that the ACER could make all the arrangements, as had been the case with the Munn-Pitt survey, and Chifley concurred. Very pleased with this outcome, Binns reported back to Cunningham, who agreed to take over the running of the project.[7] Binns did not contact the AIL, even informally, nor did he broach the subject with the Library Group. He explained later that he had not wished to embarrass the British Council by a premature announcement.[8] So it was mid-August 1946 before Australian librarians at large heard of the impending visit in a letter which Cunningham sent to all library authorities and 'interested bodies'. He told them that 'arrangements have now been practically completed for a three months' visit'. He stressed that the involvement of the ACER was at the prime minister's request. After 12 years it was timely to follow up the Munn-Pitt Report, Cunningham wrote, adding: 'the assessment by a competent observer of progress made since that report was printed can serve an extremely useful purpose. It will help to consolidate and extend the definite gains which have been made in some States'.[9] The letter also referred to the funding which had been secured from the Commonwealth, Victorian and Tasmanian governments, the University of Melbourne and the ACER.[10] Outrage in SydneyCunningham's letter came like a bombshell to the New South Wales librarians, who believed they were in the forefront of professional initiatives. Metcalfe had received a few days warning from Cunningham, who hoped that New South Wales would 'rise to the occasion', but this did nothing to placate him.[11] He was furious at being presented with a fait accompli: he was a member of the AIL Council, was standing as president that year and had been left completely in the dark. He was also a member of the Library Group, which had not discussed the visit. Neither the Trustees of the Public Library of New South Wales nor the Library Board of New South Wales had been consulted. He was also concerned that Commonwealth, Victorian and Tasmanian bodies seemed to have finalised arrangements without consulting other states, especially New South Wales, the cradle of the AIL, the Free Library Movement and public library development generally.[12] This was also a 'somewhat unusual and oblique approach by a Federal to a State authority,' he chided Binns.[13] The last thing Metcalfe wanted, however, was for there to be any ill-feeling towards McColvin, for whom he had the greatest respect: 'I have always advocated the visit of an English librarian when opportunity offers,' he told Cunningham, 'and McColvin must I consider have been a first choice.'[14] So Metcalfe immediately wrote to McColvin telling him how delighted he was to hear of his forthcoming visit.[15] Irritation with his interstate colleagues, however, persisted and when the AIL Council met in Melbourne on 10 October, 'a long and sometimes heated discussion took place'.[16] Metcalfe welcomed the McColvin visit but expressed concern at the lack of consultation. He believed that this was the latest in a series of incidents which were undermining the AIL. It was being used as a tool and then cast aside: during the War the Camp Library Service was an AIL initiative but then the Commonwealth had appointed one of its own officers to chair the governing committee. The AIL had been planning a union list of serials and that project too had been taken over by the Commonwealth, without any reference to the AIL. The ACER was now interfering in professional library matters. It was time for the AIL to take a firm stand. Metcalfe asked for it to be placed on record that he regretted that neither Binns nor Cunningham had seen fit to consult the Library Group nor the AIL on the McColvin visit. 'There should have been the kind of consultation that there was prior to the Munn-Pitt survey,' Metcalfe later reflected, 'especially with the Institute of Librarians as a commonwealth body and the successor to the Australian Library Association'.[17] Keeping the peaceOn the eve of the visit, however, the AIL Council had no desire to display their dirty linen. Nor did they want to pick a fight with the ACER, nor for that matter with Metcalfe, who was expected to be elected AIL president on the following day. They agreed that the matter could have been much better handled, but it was now water under the bridge. They nonetheless resolved to write to the prime minister thanking him for his government's support for the visit, but 'asking that in all matters likely to effect [sic] the interests of its members and the development of library services in the several States the Institute be given an opportunity of expressing an opinion before decisive action is taken'.[18] The Council had set the record straight and on the following day the annual meeting of the AIL approved a motion, moved by Metcalfe, to welcome McColvin wholeheartedly 'in his own person, as an emissary of the British Council, as a distinguished member and officer of our sister organisation'.[19] Whilst controversy raged within the profession there was also a ripple in the somewhat larger pond of Commonwealth-state relations. The federal government appeared to have intruded into the sovereignty of one of the states, and this was a serious matter, even when governments were of the same political persuasion. So it was that William McKell, the Labor premier in New South Wales, asked the Labor prime minister, Ben Chifley, to ensure that in future 'the normal procedure of seeking the co-operation of the State Government be followed in cases of this nature before arrangements are finalised.'[20] This was one in the eye for Binns, who had made the first approach to Chifley. Nonetheless, Metcalfe told Cunningham, 'I shall certainly welcome Mr McColvin, even though he does appear to be coming by the underground railway.'[21] He was of course coming by air and when he arrived in Sydney on 8 November 1946, a week late because of cancelled flights, Metcalfe greeted him warmly and handed him an official letter of welcome from the AIL, signed by himself, its new president.[22] McColvinNo-one could criticise McColvin's credentials. His work was well known among Australian librarians. In 1936 he had been one of three British librarians sent to examine North American library practice as part of an international survey of libraries commissioned by the Library Association. He edited the resulting Survey of Libraries, contributing a chapter on library administration.[23] In 1941 the Library Association asked him to survey British public libraries and to recommend how they might develop after the War. The resulting 'McColvin Report' was published in the following year and received widespread endorsement by the profession but little immediate official action.[24] 'We quote from your writings in our Library School lectures and insist on our students discussing your great report on post war developments,' Metcalfe told him, 'You have certainly not been out of our minds here in New South Wales.'[25] McColvin's 1936 American visit - thirteen cities and an American Library Association conference - and the travel required for his British survey, showed that he had stamina. He also had an impressive record of publications dating back more than a quarter of a century and was an entertaining public speaker.[26] Someone who knew him well wrote that he 'had great integrity, possessed a quicksilver mind, was impulsive, could build up an argument and contradict it in the same sentence, could always see the core of any problem, could not stand intolerance, could not abide 'yes' men and, above all, abhorred insolence, conceit and disloyalty of any kind.'[27] He promised to be a worthy successor to Munn. Metcalfe'I have heard a good deal about John Metcalfe and his work in Sydney,' McColvin told Cunningham, 'and am pleased indeed that he will start me on my travels.'[28] Metcalfe and McColvin seemed to have much in common. Both were born in northern England - Metcalfe in Blackburn, Lancashire, but living in Australia since childhood; McColvin in Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne, but living in and around London from the age of five. They were both in their forties, Metcalfe being five years McColvin's junior. Both were highly regarded by their colleagues, were leaders of their professional associations and had a public profile outside the library world. They had wide interests: music and drama in McColvin's case and a potpourri of subjects in Metcalfe's. Both were committed to the library cause, energetic, capable, confident and forceful. Metcalfe was firmly established at the Public Library of New South Wales - the state library in Sydney - where he had worked since 1923. Promoted to the new position of deputy principal librarian in controversial circumstances in 1932, he had been coached and encouraged by W H Ifould, whom he succeeded as principal librarian in 1942.[29] He had taken a major part in the formation of the AIL in 1937, had devised much of its system of examinations and chaired its Board of Examination and Certification. He was now for the first, but not the last time, president of the AIL. He was also executive member of the Library Board of New South Wales, fully constituted in 1944 to administer subsidies to local government authorities which had established free public libraries under the New South Wales Library Act, 1939. Metcalfe had also been technical adviser to the Free Library Movement, which had given momentum to public library development, particularly in New South Wales. In this role he had travelled throughout his own state, often in the company of G C Remington, a Sydney solicitor, businessman and library advocate, addressing public meetings and persuading mayors, councillors and their town clerks to adopt the Act and establish free libraries. Metcalfe's powers and responsibilities were broad, but so was his agenda: improving library education, hastening the spread of public libraries, maintaining the position of his own institution and broadening the scope and influence of the AIL. Would he find McColvin receptive to his ideas, or would new ideas emerge which would help him fulfil his aspirations? Would any of McColvin's findings undermine what Metcalfe was trying to do? Or could he use the prestige of this prophet from abroad to bolster his own arguments? Arduous itineraryMcColvin may have wondered what kind of reception he would have in Sydney - Cunningham had warned him of the controversy which had preceded his visit.[30] In fact everyone, Metcalfe included, was determined to give the visitor the utmost assistance. Sydney librarians had planned a grand welcome for McColvin, but had not reckoned with erratic airline schedules. Two hundred had gathered for an evening reception when the guest of honour was still somewhere in South East Asia. When he finally did arrive, his itinerary, mainly arranged by Metcalfe, was gruelling, even for a seasoned traveller and library surveyor like McColvin. Between November 1946 and early February 1947 he visited every state and the Australian Capital Territory, inspecting 132 libraries in regional and country areas as well as in the capital cities. On his way to Australia he had already visited 40 libraries in the Middle East and one in Singapore. After traversing Australia he would visit 39 libraries in New Zealand and 59 in the United States on his way home. It was an exhausting schedule, but McColvin revelled in it. He found audiences enthusiastic and eager to hear his words. Everywhere people went out of their way to help him. In one country town, he recalled, his hosts had 'kept a train waiting at the station while they showed me their library.'[31] Metcalfe was very pleased with the impact McColvin was making, and wrote, just after the New South Wales leg of the visit: 'he has done an excellent job already, through the impression he made on the councils, library committees and librarians with whom he came into contact'.[32] On a typical day McColvin would visit one or more libraries, lunch or dine with dignitaries, give a public lecture or attend a civic reception. He made radio broadcasts, met branches of the AIL, lectured at an adult education summer school in Perth, addressed library school students and attended a conference which the ACER had arranged for Victorian councillors in South Melbourne. He was guest of honour at a sherry party given by the British Drama League and lunched with the Rotary Club of Sydney. He spent a morning with the Victorian Chief Secretary, William Slater, outlining his impressions and discussing library legislation. It was 'not unprofitable' for Slater, who a few months later would be inaugurating the Free Library Service Board in Victoria.[33] In Canberra McColvin met Prime Minister Chifley and the Minister for External Affairs, Dr H V Evatt, who also happened to be the president of the trustees of the Public Library of New South Wales. In Sydney he met William McKell, the Premier, whose appointment as Governor-General of Australia had just been announced. In Perth he met the Premier, Frank Wise. The library inspections, public engagements and private meetings were punctuated by travel, much of it by road. In New South Wales he was generally accompanied by Metcalfe, who found him to be 'a first rate travelling companion'.[34] It was not all work: there was time for socialising and entertainment, celebrating McColvin's fiftieth birthday on 30 November, taking in some of the tourist attractions, including Bondi Beach, and visiting some Australian wineries.[35] Briefing the AILOn 27 January 1947 McColvin attended a special meeting of the AIL Council. He was due to leave for New Zealand the following week prior to making his way home via the United States. At this meeting he outlined some early impressions of Australian library development, but the main interest of the Council was what he might say about the AIL in his Report. McColvin told them he strongly favoured a radical change. Australia needed a library organisation to do three things: provide information about libraries and librarianship, promote libraries and the establishment of public libraries in particular, and stimulate recognition of the library profession. These were the three functions of the Library Association of the United Kingdom and they were also relevant in Australia. To take on its new roles the AIL would need staff and an office of its own. It would need more money but could increase its income by widening membership and broadening its appeal. McColvin ended by 'stressing his opinion that the Institute was the key to library development in Australia'.[36] In fact ways to widen its appeal and generate additional income were already being considered by the AIL. When the Council met McColvin they also had before them a paper from Metcalfe with draft constitutional changes allowing for corporate membership.[37] McColvin's recommendation was therefore not breaking completely new ground, but did add weight to moves which were already under way. The minutes of the meeting with McColvin were circulated to Branch secretaries not long afterwards as an appendix to a long statement by Metcalfe. 'Mr McColvin's comments,' Metcalfe wrote, 'had all the value of an outside opinion by a great authority, whose vigorous commonsense and ability to go to the heart of a library matter appealed to all those who met him during his all too brief period in Australia.'[38] Metcalfe then waited for the debate on the AIL constitution to kindle in the Branches and, wearing another hat, threw himself into some public library initiatives in his home state whilst McColvin's visit was still fresh in people's memories. Anticipating the ReportBefore he left McColvin had given audiences a very clear foretaste of his Report. When he met the Library Board of New South Wales in January, for example, he foreshadowed his preference for local government control of libraries, with 'central co-ordination and supplementary provision', stressing the importance of substantial initial collections, regional and local co-operation and adequate professional training.[39] This accorded with the Library Board's own strategies and encouraged them to press on in anticipation of the Report's findings. McColvin had long gone, but his printed Report was still some months away when, in May 1947, a conference on regional libraries was held in Griffith, New South Wales. Convened by the Wade Shire Council, the Riverina Regional Library Conference was a large gathering of councillors, council officers, librarians, senior public servants and local government associations from all over New South Wales. The conference 'arose out of Mr McColvin's visit,' Metcalfe told Cunningham, 'in as much as it was first suggested at a meeting of the Wade Shire Library Committee which he attended'.[40] Conference delegates were presented with a thirty-nine page account of library services in New South Wales. A contemporary observer might well have assumed that this work had McColvin's blessing - it certainly gave the impression that McColvin generally approved of the way in which public libraries were developing in New South Wales, with the reservation that 'certain weaknesses' required attention.[41] The Riverina document suggested remedies, anticipating suggestions in McColvin's Report: regional libraries where populations were sparse, trained librarians, increased support services from the Public Library of New South Wales and additional funding.[42] The political sensitivity of the funding issue may account for the reluctance of the document's authors to identify themselves, but its Library Board origins were clear enough at the time and it has since been attributed to Metcalfe.[43] The Riverina Conference saw the establishment of a standing committee to work towards a regional library for the Riverina and Central Murray. A major resolution was to ask the New South Wales Government to increase the subsidy for public libraries from a maximum of one shilling to three shillings per capita, on a pound for pound basis.[44] They would need to be patient: it would be five years before an extra sixpence was forthcoming and twelve years for the full three shillings.[45] But the conference demonstrated the basic soundness of library development in New South Wales and the extent of state and local government support. It was an endorsement of the Library Board's approach in advance of the McColvin Report. The AIL ConferenceIt was hoped that the Report would be published well before the annual conference of the AIL, which was set down for Sydney in October 1947. McColvin had in fact completed the manuscript in early June and sent copies to Cunningham and Binns as well as to Metcalfe, as president of the AIL. McColvin invited their comments, acknowledging that the Report had been rushed and might have benefited from more polishing.[46] Metcalfe was very pleased with what he read and complimented McColvin: 'We marvel at the accuracy of your reporting and the fairness and generosity of your comments throughout, particularly remarkable because of the little time you had, the speed at which you went, the few notes you appeared to take.[47] The delay in publication was partly due to a backlog of work at Melbourne University Press. McColvin had also made some changes, responding to minor errors of fact noted by Metcalfe and his colleagues, but not affecting the substance of his Report.[48] By the time of the conference, only the speakers and a small number of delegates, who had seen copies of the manuscript or proofs, knew much about the Report's contents. There were papers, group meetings and a symposium on aspects of the Report, but there was no definitive critique of the findings.[49] There were no resolutions of support or otherwise. It was probably too early to expect this, but surprisingly the Report was not referred to any AIL Committees for further examination or discussion. The Presidential Address, in which one might have expected Metcalfe to devote considerable time to the Report, barely mentioned McColvin at all. It did however deal with an issue which McColvin had raised and which was Metcalfe's main preoccupation at the time: the future of the AIL.[50] Metcalfe came down firmly on the side of wider objects for the AIL and widened membership. He was given not entirely unexpected support in the only other lengthy paper at the conference, presented by Remington, his partner in free library evangelism.[51] The way was now clear for the transformation of the AIL which would result, two years later, in the Library Association of Australia (LAA) with, however, scant credit given at the time to McColvin. Publication and disseminationThe Report, entitled Public Libraries in Australia: present conditions and future possibilities, was finally published by Melbourne University Press for the ACER in November 1947. McColvin had visited all kinds of libraries but in his Report he concentrated on his own field - public libraries.[52] He was disappointed that so little progress had been made in the 12 years since the Munn-Pitt Report, although he admitted that six of these had been War years. He did believe, however, that the 'tide of library development' was running strongly in New South Wales, particularly in metropolitan areas. Across the state about a third of the population lived in shires or municipalities which were providing or were about to provide library services.[53] As he had foreshadowed to the Library Board, he saw the main challenges as supplying a large enough initial bookstock, training sufficient staff, ensuring that free public libraries continued to be promoted, establishing an adequate central library organisation and arranging for central cataloguing of new resources. Although contained in a section on New South Wales, this advice could apply to any state. McColvin also wrote positively about library development in Tasmania, where by the end of the War '80 per cent of the State's population had access to a free library service' of varying adequacy.[54] Again he had some suggestions to make, including increasing the minimum amount expended locally on library services to one shilling per capita.[55] McColvin had little to say about Victoria. He was confident that the Free Library Service Board Act, passed during his visit, and the 'assurance of the Premier, who is keenly resolved to give Victoria the best possible library service', meant that Victoria 'should, indeed, go far.'[56] He came out much more strongly than Munn and Pitt against the institutes and schools of arts, of which he had visited over thirty, criticising them for lack of professional staffing, inadequate finances and too much fiction. None of them was equal to even a third or fourth rate American or British municipal library. They could not be turned into stopgap libraries and their continued presence meant that local authorities would ignore the need to establish free libraries. The institutes should be taken over by state and local government which should then establish public libraries.[57] In South Australia, where institutes were most entrenched, the sooner this happened the better.[58] As for Western Australia, little had been achieved since the Munn-Pitt Report. Such a large and generally sparsely populated state needed well-administered, centralised machinery, McColvin believed.[59] This was exactly what would come about, with the Library Board of Western Australia Act of 1951 and the arrival of the dynamic English librarian, F A Sharr, in 1953. Queensland showed 'promise rather than achievement', with a potentially useful Library Act passed in 1943 and a Libraries Board just appointed. To guide them there was John Metcalfe's report on Queensland library services, about which McColvin was complimentary.[60] Again the only satisfactory development would be free public libraries established by local authorities with direct state aid. A wealth of ideasMcColvin's opinions tumbled from the pages of the Report. Canberra was too small for a major research library. Each state should have a union catalogue, but there was no need for a national one. Central cataloguing was worth pursuing. There should be no charges for borrowing fiction. State parliamentary libraries should be part of the state library, or at least under the control of the state librarian. Ideas, descriptions and suggestions flowed for 74 pages before McColvin launched into a forty-page 'program for library development for Australia'. This scheme, by now familiar, strongly resembled what had been happening in New South Wales: a library act, a library board, a partnership between state and local government, centralised processing, a library school, a central lending library for people in very remote areas, and bulk loans, including children's books, to some local libraries. Funding was an issue which he could not ignore, but he did not attempt to go into the detailed analysis of options which he had done with British libraries in his 1942 Report. It was a wise approach as otherwise he would have confronted different jurisdictions with a variety of rating arrangements. Instead he took as an initial and realistic target the sum of two shillings per capita, the figure used in New South Wales. This would only be a starting point: much more money would be needed. This was not news in New South Wales: at the very time McColvin was finalising his Report, the Library Board was actually aiming at a much higher target - seven shillings was the figure mentioned months before in the paper prepared for the Riverina Conference.[61] As expected McColvin recommended a widening of the objects and membership of the AIL so that they were similar to those of the Library Association and of the American Library Association. The new association could then speak not only for librarians but also for libraries and those who provided them. Wider membership would bring funds for a paid secretariat, an information bureau on libraries and librarianship and a monthly journal.[62] The Commonwealth roleA striking comment in the Report was on the role which the Commonwealth government - 'as the arbiter of the financial ability of the States' - might play in public library provision.[63] Having raised this issue, however, McColvin cautiously limited suggested Commonwealth funding to a school of advanced library studies at the new Australian National University in Canberra, financial assistance for the AIL and grants for demonstration projects. Once again his Report had been anticipated, not only by resolutions at the Riverina Regional Library Conference but also by discussions on Commonwealth assistance at a meeting of Australian library boards convened by the Library Board of New South Wales in October 1947.[64] To his credit, however, McColvin had recognised a missing factor in public library provision and had drawn attention to it, intractable though it would prove to be. The Horton Report would explore the issue in more detail three decades later, but generations of librarians have so far been unable to elicit direct Commonwealth funding for public libraries.[65] 'Not a prophet or an oracle'McColvin's whole purpose, he declared, was not to lay down the law on libraries, but to stimulate debate, discussion and action through his Report. 'I have tried to make it controversial,' McColvin had told Metcalfe.[66] This aim was plainly expressed in the Report itself: 'Frankly, I've sought to make you think and argue,' he wrote. 'If with just cause you can disagree with my criticism or my contentions I won't mind, so long as you do something about it. That's all that matters. The decision what to do must be yours. If you think and argue enough it will surely be the right decision. It is my function to be not a prophet or an oracle, but an irritant. The success of my mission can be measured only by the extent of your reactions.'[67] Once he had completed his Report, McColvin did not regard his work as finished. 'Anything I can do further,' he wrote, 'to help or to provoke, I want to be given the chance to do.'[68] He was as good as his word: on his way home through the United States he discussed further training for Australian librarians at Columbia University, where Wilma Radford, who taught at the Library School in Sydney, would soon enrol. He also sought the views of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation on financial support for Australian libraries and, when back in England, wrote to Metcalfe frequently to keep him in the picture.[69] McColvin never returned to Australia, but he did maintain contact with Australian colleagues for several years. He was also able to return some of their hospitality when they were visiting London.[70] Metcalfe in LondonAn early visitor was John Metcalfe, who arrived in the United Kingdom in January 1948 for a six-week stay, fresh from the UNESCO conference in Mexico City and several weeks in the United States. In Australia McColvin had enjoyed Metcalfe's company immensely: here was a man 'with whom I could argue without cease and without reserve'.[71] On McColvin's home territory, however, their relationship would undergo a change. During this visit Metcalfe hoped to gain McColvin's support for reciprocal recognition of library qualifications. The growing number of Australian librarians on 'working holidays' in the United Kingdom wanted their AIL qualifications recognised. In return the AIL would recognise the Library Association qualifications of the British librarians migrating to Australia.[72] McColvin eventually agreed to support this proposal, but Metcalfe suspected that the Library Association was 'fee hungry'. McColvin was more interested in boosting membership than doing the AIL or Metcalfe a favour.[73] Other incidents led Metcalfe to detect a strain in the relationship: McColvin seemed to be avoiding him. It was true that McColvin had taken him to the National Liberal Club for dinner with P S J Welsford, secretary of the Library Association. They had also lunched at the Café Royal. McColvin had even taken Metcalfe to meet the Metaphors, a group of London librarians which McColvin had founded in 1936. The Metaphors, nicknamed according to the boroughs they represented, met regularly to socialise and discuss professional issues. McColvin - 'Big Ben' because he was Westminster's librarian - was their undisputed leader: 'It is evident that McColvin, in his capacity to think and act and prepare documents,' Metcalfe recorded, 'is head and shoulders above most here, and his strength is almost doubled by his strategic position in London,' It was all the more disappointing, therefore, that Metcalfe had not seen as much of McColvin as he would have expected. Metcalfe was 'only half-heartedly' invited to visit the library at Westminster - he visited it anyway, incognito. He was not invited to McColvin's home at all.[74] Metcalfe wondered why McColvin seemed 'uneasy', and believed he needed to look no further than at the state of British librarianship.[75] 'Obviously they are miles ahead of us in provision of good public lending libraries,' Metcalfe explained, 'but in their library schools, their reference libraries at all levels, their bibliography, apart from historical bibliography perhaps for which we haven't the materials or the needs, in their theory, philosophy and practice of examination and certification in librarianship I think we have, putting it at the lowest, better foundations in Australia. The general cultural background is better here [he was writing this in London], the theatres and so on are better, but not libraries, except the public libraries.'[76] Indeed there was still much to be done in British libraries, as McColvin himself had found in his 1942 Report. The strain in their relationship, Metcalfe concluded, was because McColvin 'knows in his heart that libraries here, including his own, aren't what he cracked them up to be.'[77] British libraries might well be fertile ground for some of his own ideas, Metcalfe reflected: 'If I were settled here long enough to get into their library politics, there would be some fun'.[78] But he was soon to return home to Australia, whence he could enjoy his fun mainly from a distance, crossing swords with several British librarians on the theory and practice of librarianship in later years. Did McColvin have an inkling of what was going through Metcalfe's mind? Did he see this visitor as a potential rival? Did he simply feel he had done enough to return Metcalfe's hospitality or was he just too busy? Was he weary of defending his position, his library's position and the entire British position, against this persistent Antipodean? Or was Metcalfe imagining things, not understanding that the Englishman at home might be more reserved than the Englishman abroad? Whatever the reason, the sunny relationship between them in Australia had deteriorated in that English winter. There was now a certain wariness on Metcalfe's part. Very soon there would be reason for both parties to be wary. A lengthy reviewWhilst Metcalfe was bidding farewell to London, an unpleasant surprise was on its way to McColvin from the editor of the Australian Quarterly, in the form of proofs of an article on the McColvin Report by the New South Wales parliamentary librarian, H L McLoskey. Stung by the treatment of parliamentary libraries in the Report, McLoskey did not mince his words.[79] He began by undermining the legitimacy of the entire Report by revealing its troubled origins. Far from requesting the survey, state authorities were 'taken somewhat by surprise when Mr McColvin's visit was announced, and felt that they had been overlooked in the matter'.[80] Considering the travel involved, the large number of libraries inspected and the 'great deal of time also absorbed in public entertainments to the visitor', McColvin's examination of Australian library systems must have been 'cursory and superficial'.[81] He must have relied 'largely on the Munn-Pitt report and perhaps the views of those who chaperoned his tours', a dig at Metcalfe, with whom McLoskey did not always see eye to eye. 'The only just conclusion seems to be that his report at this stage really only rehashes Munn-Pitt, emphasises the obvious, and has no independent merits sufficiently great to justify the investigation.'[82] McColvin's attempt to find a single pattern for library services in Australia was futile. Such an approach might work in 'the compact little United Kingdom' but revealed 'a fundamental failure to understand Australian conditions' and the existence of sovereign state governments, not just the Commonwealth.[83] A chapter of the Report describing the principles of library service was 'nothing more than any competent Australian librarian could have run off at short notice'. McLoskey did acknowledge, however, some merit in the section on library services for children, although he disagreed with much of the detail. The only other section of the Report of any value dealt with widening the scope of the AIL.[84] These useful portions of the Report would receive the attention they deserved. The remainder did not add significantly to what Munn and Pitt and 'other investigations' had shown and was a waste of money.[85] McColvin's comments on parliamentary libraries were unasked for and the Report, McLoskey declared, was therefore unauthorised as well as discourteous. He then gave his version of McColvin's lightning visit to the New South Wales Parliamentary Library, expanded upon his visitor's ignorance of Australian parliamentary and constitutional law - McLoskey was a lawyer - and quoted from a British report on parliamentary reform to support his case rather than 'the half-baked proposals of Mr McColvin'.[86] He added that the library committees of two state Parliaments had already passed 'resolutions of emphatic protest'.[87] The New South Wales committee had conveyed its resolution to McColvin himself, to the ACER, to the British Council and to all Australian parliamentary libraries. The committee referred to McColvin's own self-deprecating words, 'speaking, I must admit, as an ignorant stranger', and unanimously agreed with him. It was a stern rebuke.[88] Had McLoskey confined himself to parliamentary libraries, the article might have been dismissed as pique and self-interest. But he had criticised McColvin's ideas on public library development as well, and McLoskey's membership of the Library Board of New South Wales - although not mentioned in the article - tended to add some weight to his criticism.[89] Left unanswered the article's effect would be devastating. But who would feel compelled to respond?[90] McColvin's rejoinder McColvin read and reread the proofs and mulled things over for a few weeks before deciding to exercise his right of reply. He could not remain silent and appear to accept McLoskey's tirade as fair comment. When McColvin's rejoinder arrived, Metcalfe was back in Sydney and he and Remington read it very carefully.[91] They made a small deletion: a criticism of the provision of light fiction for Members of Parliament. Such a comment would only irritate the MPs and bolster support for McLoskey.[92] In his seven-page riposte in the September 1948 Australian Quarterly McColvin gave as good as he got.[93] His Report was far from 'cursory and superficial': he was an experienced surveyor of libraries and 'just as a man with a nose doesn't need to crawl along a drain to know that it stinks, neither does it take long for a man who knows enough about libraries to see what is wrong and what is right with any individual institution.' He denied plagiarising Munn-Pitt - although McLoskey had not used the word. If there were similarities between the surveyors' remarks, that was because 'nothing had happened to change them in the intervening years'.[94] Repeating his criticism of the New South Wales Parliamentary Library, he rejected everything which McLoskey had written, concluding: 'There are plenty of people in Australia capable of telling Mr McLoskey where he is wrong'.[95] The correspondence columns of the Australian Quarterly, normally hospitable to controversial debates, fell silent as far as the Report was concerned. McLoskey himself prepared a five-page rebuttal, which he had duplicated, objecting to McColvin's poor taste and ungentlemanliness, and pointing out that no-one had leapt to McColvin's defence. The journal's readers were spared this longwinded epistle, which added nothing to the debate.[96] Though both Remington and Metcalfe were on the executive of the Australian Institute of Political Science and frequent contributors to its journal, neither came to McColvin's defence, at least in public. There was much in McLoskey's article with which Metcalfe would have disagreed, particularly his assertion that a 'reasonable standard' of library services had already been achieved throughout New South Wales, bearing in mind the existing low level of demand from a population 'not as yet sufficiently educated to the general use of libraries containing educational and informative material'.[97] Metcalfe knew only too well that there was still a long way to go, but beginning a public argument with McLoskey, a fellow Library Board member and, as parliamentary librarian, close to the legislators, would not help the public library cause one iota. Metcalfe did however send McColvin a cordial letter and copies of the journal containing McColvin's response, telling him that it had been well received. McLoskey had been 'relatively subdued at the last meeting of the Library Board', just after the response had been published. The remainder of the four-page foolscap letter brought McColvin up to date with developments in the book trade, library training, the AIL constitution and public libraries. There was even a ray of hope for free libraries in South Australia, Metcalfe told him: a shift in the attitude of the Minister for Education and the Institutes Association of South Australia - 'a large measure of this can be properly contributed [ie attributed] to the influence of your Report'.[98] He wished to reassure McColvin that they were on the same side: McLoskey had been out of order, McColvin had provided an effective response, and that should be the end of the matter, or so Metcalfe hoped. McColvin may have wondered whether Metcalfe had known about the offending McLoskey article before he visited England. Metcalfe probably did not, as his travel diaries, usually very frank about what he was doing, saying and thinking, reveal nothing on the matter. On the day McLoskey received his copy of the McColvin Report, Metcalfe was actually in Mexico City as a member of the Australian delegation to the second conference of UNESCO.[99] In December when McLoskey gave his fellow Library Board members typed copies of the comments which later appeared word for word in the Australian Quarterly, Metcalfe was in the United States.[100] McColvin had wanted to be controversial and he could have consoled himself that the controversy might actually have encouraged more people to read the Report. Cunningham certainly made sure that the Report was widely available, sending copies to all local government bodies in Australia. Multiple copies were held in the state libraries and the Report became a fixture on reading lists for library students. It was mentioned in popular publications, including an issue of Current Affairs Bulletin devoted to libraries. Here an anonymous author - actually Metcalfe - listed the Report for further reading but ignored it in the text, a fate which it was to suffer on more than one occasion.[101] Encounters in printIn later years the names McColvin and Metcalfe were sometimes linked on the printed page. The first issue of the Australian Library Journal in 1951 carried a review of McColvin's work on public library extension services. 'He deals in principles remarkably well and clearly argued considering the speed at which he travels and the countries he visits,' wrote Metcalfe in an unsigned review. 'It is only occasionally that the expected conclusions do not seem to follow from his premises,' Metcalfe added. On the McLoskey scale this was mild criticism.[102] The tone was harsher two years later in a review - signed on this occasion - of a book by the British librarian L M Harrod. Metcalfe could not resist a jibe at a publisher's blurb extolling the virtues of London's libraries when, according to Metcalfe, 'London has no adequate general reference library open to the general public after 5:00pm.'[103] McColvin took exception to Metcalfe's comment in a letter to the editor telling him that Westminster Central Reference Library, with a comprehensive reference collection, was open until 8:00pm every evening. Metcalfe the editor intruded, trivialising the matter with a reference to McColvin's nickname 'Big Ben', and repeating his claim, with the additional qualification of 'service from a collection of half a million volumes or more', like his own library in Sydney.[104] Five years before he had judged British reference libraries harshly but had kept his opinion to himself, but now he was picking at a tender spot. It was characteristic of McColvin to wish to set the record straight, and just as characteristic of Metcalfe to want the last word. McColvin did not contribute further to the Australian Library Journal, but his books were reviewed from time to time. In 1953 The Personal Library was favourably assessed by Australian publisher Andrew Fabinyi, who noted that McColvin was able to describe public library services in Britain as 'the best in the world'.[105] On this occasion the editor was not tempted to intervene. Metcalfe was then under much heavier fire for editorial intrusion over one of his bêtes noires - the Bliss Bibliographic Classification - and after a number of salvoes bowed out as editor in January 1954.[106] The verdictWriters often seek a landmark document or a watershed from which things, good and bad, can be said to flow. Referring to the Munn-Pitt Report, Derek Whitehead has shown how simplistic this approach can be, and how it tends to overshadow developments which were already in train.[107] Whitehead's argument could apply equally to McColvin. Opinions of his visit have ranged from 'the single most important event of the immediate post-war years' to 'helpful' in the period of post-war reconstruction.[108] The closest observers of McColvin's visit were Metcalfe and Cunningham. They managed to disagree about many things, but on the impact of the Report their later judgements were surprisingly similar. Cunningham downplayed the significance of the Report. The rapid post-war development of public library services 'should probably be attributed mainly to the lifting of war stresses and to the example of the more "advanced" states,' Cunningham wrote, 'but the stimulation which Mr McColvin himself provided was a great help.'[109] Metcalfe too attributed more to McColvin's presence and to his practical advice during his visit than to the subsequent Report. 'He was most helpful in a barnstorming tour,' Metcalfe wrote of the New South Wales stage of the visit, 'adding to the adoptions of the [Library] act and libraries in operation'.[110] McColvin's views had also aided the process of reforming the AIL, but the Report did not have the impact of the Munn-Pit Report. Nor was that required, as there were 'other influences at work'. After all, Metcalfe pointed out, 'there were no Free Library Movements, no Institute branches, no free library boards, to welcome Mr. Munn'. These bodies had all come into being between the time of the Munn-Pitt Report and McColvin's visit.[111] McColvin's impact has generally eluded systematic analysis.[112] Few of the subsequent positive developments can be directly attributed to McColvin that were not already under consideration or being implemented. Regionalisation, for example, was already happening in New South Wales long before the Riverina Conference, which was itself merely suggested during a meeting which McColvin attended.[113] Likewise, Metcalfe and others were already thinking of ways to transform the AIL into a more effective body, freed from the perceived apron-strings of the ACER, before McColvin recommended it.[114] By adding McColvin's weight to his argument, Metcalfe was now able to move for a transformation of the AIL into the LAA with relative ease.[115] The apparently positive changes of attitude in South Australia which Metcalfe had reported to McColvin and attributed to his visit and Report were in fact a false dawn - there were decades of life left in the institutes movement. McColvin did make a major contribution to the better working of the Free Library Services Board Act in Victoria, thanks to discussions and a detailed commentary, which was not, however, part of the Report.[116] Some library authorities did take to heart and acknowledge McColvin's advice on collection sizes and training for librarianship.[117] But to seek simple cause and effect is to miss a crucial point about McColvin's visit and his Report: McColvin had a double impact, both aspects of which were acknowledged in Metcalfe and Cunningham's assessments. The first impact came from those 'barnstorming' visits across the country when McColvin enthused librarians and laity alike. Looking back from an age when visits by overseas experts - real and so-called - are commonplace, we may not realise what an impact this leading British librarian had on his audiences at the time. During those three months, Cunningham wrote, McColvin 'was equally at home in convincing politicians or local councillors of the need for better library services, in discussing matters of library policy with leading librarians, or in giving practical hints to the novice. There seemed no limit to his energy and his enthusiasm.'[118] McColvin applied all his skills and talents to making people think, discuss and decide for themselves. During his visit he outlined his early impressions very freely and shared his expertise generously. Where the climate for library development was favourable, his weight could be lent to developments which were already under way, even before his Report had been written. In a sense, he was stealing his own thunder. The second impact came with publication of the Report itself. McColvin was unhindered by terms of reference - Cunningham, meticulous in so many other respects, had provided none. If you expected a clinical report with an executive summary and a neat series of recommendations to be ticked off when implemented, you would be disappointed. McColvin set out to describe what he saw, to make suggestions, to share ideas and to stimulate debate. The spontaneity of the tumbling ideas and inconsistent structure reflected the haste with which the Report was written, but also recaptured some of the flavour of McColvin's addresses and conversations during his visit as well as the enthusiasm which he had generated in his audiences. The Report also had to be readable and in this McColvin succeeded: 20 years after it was published, the Report was still on reading lists, still in print and still being bought.[119] It was being read too, not as a blueprint for library development, but for its 'masterly arguments'.[120] Having arrived in a flurry of controversy, McColvin had been let loose in a minefield of old rivalries and injured pride. He had been given no real terms of reference. He had been left to the mercies of forceful and focused 'chaperones' like Metcalfe and Remington. Unlike Munn, he had no Pitt as a constant and thorough companion to alert him to sensitive local issues, and this made him vulnerable to subsequent criticism. Despite the many handicaps, McColvin the person and McColvin the reporter was much more than a catalyst: he was an active agent in public library development at the time. Just as he had set out to do, he stimulated people - first his listeners and then the readers of his Report - making them think, argue and then decide for themselves. And after all of the controversy, his visit had brought together, for a few weeks at least, two great minds of the library world. EpilogueIn 1968 the Library Association in the United Kingdom published a McColvin festschrift, which included a far from panegyrical essay by Metcalfe.[121] In that same year the Library Association of Australia issued Who's Who in Australian Libraries. Among the criteria for inclusion were 'overseas persons who have rendered valuable service to librarianship in Australia'.[122] Among these persons we find not only Ralph Munn, but also Sara Innis Fenwick, Keyes Metcalf and Maurice Tauber. We look in vain for McColvin.[123] For McColvin himself the Australian survey did not rate highly in his career. When he looked back over his life in an interview almost thirty years later, all he could say of his three-month visit was: 'I was there to study Australian libraries but there wasn't much to study since there was then little interest in them, outside the cities like Sydney and Melbourne.'[124] Munn died in 1975 and a six-page tribute by John Metcalfe appeared in the May issue of the Australian Library Journal.[125] The following year the journal did not even record McColvin's death. Endnotes
Biographical information Dr David J Jones has worked at the State Library of New South Wales since 1970. He is currently Manager, Building and Advisory Services, Public Library Services and Library Building consultant and Manager, Building and Planning Advisory Service. His doctoral thesis was on W H Ifould and the development of library services in New South Wales. The sixth edition of his Australian Dictionary of Acronyms and Abbreviations was published by ALIA earlier this year. With the late Professor Jean P Whyte he wrote Uniting a Profession: the Australian Institute of Librarians, 1937-1949 (Canberra, ALIA, in preparation).
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