"Papers from the Ninth Australian Library History Conference, Swinburne University - Prahan Campus, 26-27 June, 2009"--T.p. verso.
Collections, Characters and Communities brings to twenty-first-century readers a kaleidoscope of the rich and varied library world of Australia and New Zealand in the 1800s and 1900s. It is a story of public and private endeavours, of co-operation and inter-state rivalry, of dominant, not to say controlling personalities, and of the reach of books into the outback as well as into the working-class suburbs of cities. There is a North American dimension in Carnegie's support for the Dunedin Public Library and in his Corporation's critical and often unflattering view of Australian universities in the 1930s. Even South America makes an appearance through the library set up in the Australian utopian colony at Cosme in Paraguay. Otherwise it is a matter of the dense network of schools of arts, athanaeums and mechanics' or literary intstitutes across the two countries, not to mention notable urban concentrations of commercial lending collections before public libraries came into their own in the second half of the twentieth century. Librarians' training and collaboration, under the watchful eyes of such outsize figures as Redmond Barry and John Metcalfe, are at one end of a spectrum that also encompasses the needs of people in the Queensland bush. Bringing printed matter to all Australians and New Zealanders was manifestly never a straightforward process.
Contents include: 2009 foxcroft Lecture : Carnegie down under : a century of the Dunedin Public Library / Mary A. Ronnie p3.
Collections, characters and communities: The origins of inter-library loans in Australia in relation to special libraries / Donald Keast, Edmund Balnaves, Judy Czuchnowski, John Balnaves p17. the Australian Law Librarians’ Association / Fiona Brown p25. Government promotion of public libraries in New Zealand, 1860-1935 / David Verran p35. John’s Gospel : Metcalfe and the writing of Australian library history / David J. Jones p43. War between the states averted : how the NSW Free Library Movement’s territorial ambitions came to little / Carmel Maguire p63. ‘Not yet ready’ : Australian university libraries and Carnegie Corporation philanthropy, 1935-1945 / Michael J. Birkner p77. The impact of overseas agencies on the development of education for Australian library workers / Mary Carroll p95. “To elevate the tone of moral and intellectual attainment’ : the Braidwood Literary Institute and its subscribers, 1858-1862 / Andrew Sergeant p107. ‘A little bit of love for me and a murder for my old man’ : the Queensland Bush Book Club / Robin Wagner p121. ‘Our excellent little library’ : an account of the Cosme Library / Mark Cryle p143. Melbourne’s Circulation Libraries 1857-1974 : their demography and geography revisited / Peter Pereyra p159. Characters in conflict at the library of the Supreme Court of Victoria : Redmond Barry and Robert Pohlman / Sue Reynolds p175.