COMMENTARY

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 2, Issue 2, 1 October 1969, Page 82

COMMENTARY

Mr R. F. Grover, Assistant Chief Librarian, has been awarded an Anzac Fellowship in terms of which he is spending six months in Australia examining library and other institutional holdings of New Zealand manuscripts, paintings and photographs. Mr Grover who began his assignment on 1 July, is undertaking this work with the welcome support of the Australian National Librarian, Mr H. L. White, and the Principal Librarian of the Library of New South Wales, Mr G. D. Richardson, in whose libraries much of his time will be spent. He will also visit Adelaide, Melbourne, Hobart and Brisbane. While in Canberra at the National Library of Australia he will also study bibliographical procedures and techniques. These are of great interest to Turnbull, which as part of the National Library, is responsible for the New Zealand National Bibliography. The Turnbull Committee and Trustees are grateful to the Australian Library authorities who, as part of Mr Grover's programme, have permitted extensive runs of manuscript to be photocopied for consultation in the Turnbull Library.

Miss M. Walton, Head of Reference, who has been on leave in the United Kingdom since the beginning of June, spent some weeks at work in London in August-September at the conclusion of her holiday. Her task has been to assist Mr John Maggs of Messrs Maggs Bros to identify the items in which the Library is interested in the collection of the late K. A. Webster bought by the firm. During his relatively short active period as a book collector as distinct from a collector of Maori artifacts, Mr Webster had built up what was undoubtedly the finest private collection still extant on New Zealand, Australia and their colonising background. In earlier years Mr Webster had generously permitted some of his manuscripts to be copied for the Library. By a tragic conjunction of circumstances one such consignment was almost totally destroyed on its return, in the 1961 Aotea Quay fire. Before his sudden death in October 1967 the Library had bought a number of manuscripts from Mr Webster. The sympathetic indulgence of Mrs Webster, the Trustees of the estate and of John Maggs in giving New Zealand in the form of the Library the opportunity of acquiring not merely the manuscripts which Mr Webster still retained but also selections from his pamphlets, maps and numerous other rare ephemera is greatly appreciated.

The Library, in agreement with the National Library of Australia, the Mitchell Library and the University of Hawaii, were bidders at the 2 June Paris sale of the Ropiteau-O’Reilly collection of Tahitian and other Pacific manuscripts with early island imprints. These libraries, with the Australian National University in Canberra, constitute the

Pacific Manuscripts Bureau, an organisation of research libraries whose whose main function is the location of manuscript and rare printed material dealing with the Pacific and the arrangement of its microfilming for the benefit of member libraries. Turnbull's membership is as part of the National Library. Mr R. Langdon, the executive officer of the Bureau who is in Canberra at the Australian National University, reported on the negotiations in Pambu, no n June 1969, in which he quoted a librarian as saying that the negotiations had been 'a quite successful exercise in interlibrary and international co-operation'. The complex series of consultations in fact involved two last-minute calls by the Chief Librarian to Canberra and Sydney. Competition was very strong and many items wanted by Mitchell, The National Library of Australia and Turnbull went to other buyers. The Library's own purchases included letters by William Wilson, John Jefferson, John Harris, Henry Nott, Samuel Tessier, John Davies, and John Youl, all dealing with the establishment of the Tahitian mission. This acquisition matches a prized possession of the Library, the original journal of William Puckey, who landed at Matavai Bay in 1797. A Pacific log kept by Henri Jouan and Tahitian imprints were also acquired. The cost, approximately $3,000, will be met by the Alexander Turnbull Library Endowment Trust.

Mention of the Endowment Trust reminds us that in this issue members will find the Annual Statement of Accounts of the Friends of the Turnbull Library. Although as part of the National Library the Alexander Turnbull Library has an increased allocation available to it for the purchase of library materials, the escalating prices of books, paintings and manuscripts still place it at a disadvantage in competition with overseas institutions. The capital of the Endowment Trust which began with a donation by Sir George and Lady Shirtcliffe thirty-five years ago, has been added to over the years by donations and bequests, but most substantially by profits from the sales of Library prints published by the Trust. These funds, which total at present approximately $45,000, need to be both husbanded and increased if the Library is to buy what it needs. Members, by encouraging the purchase of prints and other Library publications, will assist greatly in adding to our resources. The funds of the Friends of the Turnbull Library are used primarily to support the Record, the cost of which at the present time is a little in excess of our subscription income and returns from sales of the cards and other publications sold in the name of Friends. While the large increase in membership and worthwhile exchanges has been most gratifying, members are urged to widen still further the circulation by drawing the Record to the attention of friends and colleagues, and so enable at least three issues a year to be published, as originally planned two years ago.