The Australian Library Journal

'Librarian built up uni collection'

[Editorial] John Levett
As we report elsewhere in this issue, Andrew Osborn is dead. His obituary in The Australian [May 7 1997 p14] carried the simple headline 'Librarian built up uni collection' a statement which all too briefly says what being a university - or any sort of librarian - used to be about. And the collection was, of course, of books. It is difficult to imagine a similar headline for an obituary of any of the contemporary cohort of business-suited university librarians. Nor - to be entirely fair - is it likely that they would seek such an epitaph; the present climate would more likely demand that they be remembered for increasing efficiency, for their advocacy of Internet access for their students; for the reductions in the book and serials votes; for their assiduity in promoting the CD-ROM.

Our own professional association would endorse this shift in the flavour of the professional epitaph. Only rarely, if ever, now, does the word 'book' get a mention in the councils of ALIA; and you can read whole issues of inCite, and perhaps even of this journal without encountering that particular four-letter word. Certainly it is all but absent from the professional syllabus, if there is such a thing now that the profession has largely conceded such matters to the academy. Such a change in such a short time; for only 20 years ago, the word occurred on virtually every page of the LAA's Handbook and for the two decades previously it had held undisputed sway at the centre of all of the Association's deliberations, and it dominated the professional curriculum.

Nowadays it is routine, as we heard a state librarian enthusing just recently, to say [apologetically even] 'Our library doesn't just hold books'. A recent 'Frontline' had our president, tongue not quite out of cheek, endorsing the term 'webliographer' as an appropriate substitute for bibliographer. Our age is showing, we suppose: and yet, no Luddites we. We happily use the technology on a daily basis, and there is no longer any doubt about its power and utility to hold, search for and deliver information. Nor is this the place to flourish once again that beginning-to-be-tattered couplet of TS Eliot's; but 'information' is such a narrow concept; functional, certainly; effective, definitely. But in the words of a song made famous [for us: our age showing again] by Peggy Lee 'Is that all there is?'

American cuisine has coined the term 'soul food', which has the considerable attraction that each of us can respond in terms of our own culinary experience: for us, soul food is a dish called 'Colcannon', originating, we think [perhaps because we first encountered it, at an impressionable age, there] in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where the Geordies come from, and the boats come in, a mixture of mashed spuds, bacon slivers, and cabbage, the whole mixed up and left to fry, whole, until it is brown, when it is turned over [as distinct from its relatives Bubble and Squeak, and Lobscouse, each of which are turned frequently so that the crunchy brown bits get scattered throughout the whole]. Bear with us: we are coming to the point, which is, of course, that 'information' is the intellectual version of dry biscuit; it will, in a pinch, keep your body alive, but it will not feed your soul in the way that books do.

Apropos of nothing, we suspect that the member for Oxley has not read many books. This is not a value judgement; you can still get through life, converse effectively and manage your affairs, without recourse to books. Many people do. But if you are to kick, poke, stir, inflame, incite, arouse, the body politic, it would be well to have some understanding of what it is you are about; you might even discover your lineage and your links to that long line of demagogues who, at various times in history, have prophesied doom, and untethered the apocalyptic horsemen. At the very least, it might help to have read Mein Kampf, and to have reflected on the vicissitudes to which the author of that seminal work exposed not only his own, but many other nations of Europe in his nomination of a scapegoat race and his expositions on the miseries of the working poor and the threatened middle class, to whose members the oratory of the senator from Ipswich makes such a powerful appeal in Australia today.

We think that perhaps Ms Hanson's soul is impoverished and wants for nourishment; it may be that it can still be found in the public libraries of Ipswich, Queensland, and that it is not too late for her to learn some of the lessons of history there. Not the 'kings and queens' versions of history, but that rich compost of individual lives and disparate cultures reflected in the items to be found in any good Australian library collection. And by items, we mean books, for only books give one the time, the depth, the horizon, the perspective and the humanity to see where it is that we in this country have come from. True, they are for a moment unfashionable with us. They have been so on occasion in the past: it may be that libraries will turn their backs on them, but if they do, some other organism will take them in, nourish and circulate them, and fertilise their time and their society with their mythic riches.

Only in books can we read and experience, in extenso, the complexities of humanity in all its richness and frailty. Which brings us back to Andrew Osborn: his virtues and his contribution are discussed more expertly elsewhere in this issue as Harrison Bryan reviews his career. We can let him rest, nobly, under the epitaph 'Librarian built up uni collection' for that he did, in a style and with a conviction which although temporarily in abeyance in his profession, lies at its heart. Future generations of readers at our oldest university, although they might neither know nor remember his name, may rejoice that he did.

In this issue Stuart Macintyre discourses on the tensions which confront contemporary librarians as they struggle to reconcile the conflicting demands on them; John Thawley examines the often taken for granted, but as he suggests, critically important Policy statements of ALIA; Susan Mouer, in the 1996 Metcalfe Medallion essay looks to the past, present and future of competency standards for the profession; Indra Kurzeme scans the exciting possibilities of the Internet for libraries; Peter Moloney tracks an inner-city public library service through the processes of automation; Sharon Greenshields looks at the literature which reports how the corporate sector views its libraries; Ian Morrison analyses the Nineteenth Century Short-title Catalogue on CD-ROM [and finds it wanting]; Judith Brophy reports on the restructuring of ready-reference services at the UWS; Justine Hyde gives us a considered view on challenges facing the company librarian; Steve O'Connor and two of his colleagues read the future for the libraries at UTS; Marion King and Faye Pattinson induct new staff in a thoroughly professional manner, and Debbie Posker looks at the best way to exploit the riches of ABS.

It is very pleasing to this editor to note the range of contributions offered, and that students and library technicians [surely a name-change for this sector is long overdue?] are voicing their views with such evident confidence: an excellent augury.

We also welcome Dr Gary Gorman as our reviews editor. As do many of our readers, we hold the view that one of the critical functions of a professional journal is the ongoing assessment of the relevant literature. Gary is senior lecturer in Library and Information Science at Charles Sturt University. A former editor of Australian Library Review, he has a long interest in LIS publishing and information dissemination. He has been a reviewer and reviews editor for 20 years.