Notes and Comments

Turnbull Library Record, Volume XII, Issue 1, 1 May 1979, Page 46

Notes and Comments

Permission to publish manuscripts in the Library’s collections

The Library’s policy on permission to publish materials from its collections has been made explicit in a memorandum dated 1 November 1978 which is being made available to research workers. The long-standing ‘Notes for the Users of Manuscripts’ which are part of th e Rules for Use of Library and Reading Room state that written permission must be secured from the Library to publish materials from the Manuscript Section. Until recently all users have correctly interpreted this to mean that permission should be sought from the Library at the earliest possible opportunity and before any approach is made to the copyright owner or agreements made with a publisher. The memorandum states that ‘authors and editors are strongly advised not to enter into negotiations with copyright owners and publishers until they have secured permission from the Library as proprietor or custodian. Failure to observe this procedure may lead to a refusal by the Library to allow publication.’ A departure from these established procedures is likely to jeopardise the orderly business of editing and publishing original manuscripts and can lead only to friction between scholars, the waste of scarce human resources, and uncertainty among publishers.

The Turnbull Research Fund The last issue of the Record outlined proposals by the Board of the Alexander Turnbull Library Endowment Trust to establish a research fund to be used to encourage scholarly research based on the Library’s collections. The Fund has now been established but not in the form originally proposed. The Board was initially advised that an amendment to the original deed of trust would be the best method of achieving its objectives but was subsequently advised late in 1978 by its solicitors that the Supreme Court was unlikely to agree to the substantial variation proposed. The Research Fund has therefore been created by a separate deed of trust between an anonymous settlor and the Board constituting the Alexander Turnbull Library Research Endowment Fund. The settlor specifies that the trust fund should be used for ‘The advancement of learning and the Arts and Sciences through the promotion and support ... of or for scholarly research and

publication based on the collections of the Alexander Turnbull Library . . . the creation and payment ... of Scholarships Fellowships and grants to enable individuals (whether in New Zealand or elsewhere) to conduct scholarly research on or relating to or based on the Library’s collections ... to undertake sponsor promote and manage . . . lectures seminars conferences or other meetings concerning the Library or the collections of the Library ... to assist the Library in the accumulation of its collections and in the furtherance of its lawful objects, and towards such other

purposes as in the opinion of the Board will be for the benefit of the Library, and for any purpose which is charitable by reason of being ancillary to such general purposes as aforesaid’. The Board of the Endowment Trust is named as the administrator of the Research Fund and given wide-ranging powers to raise and expend the assets of the Fund. The programme of assistance outlined in the Record of October 1978 is not affected by this change of the form of the Research Fund nor are the taxation concessions affected. Further donations to the Fund have been received from the Sir John Ilott Charitable Trust ($400) and the Sutherland Self-Help Trust ($1,000).

Further recognition of Graham BagnalVs achievements Austin Graham Bagnall, OBE, Chief Librarian of the Alexander Turnbull Library from 1966 to 1973, has been awarded an honorary doctorate of literature by the Victoria University of Wellington for his contribution to scholarship in New Zealand as librarian, bibliographer and historian. Dr Bagnall studied at Victoria University College and graduated M.A. with first class honours in philosophy in 1937. In addition, his major work in local history, Wairarapa: an Historical Excursion (1976) has received the 1978 J. M. Sherrard Award for New Zealand regional history.

Fellowship for Tony Murray-Oliver Mr Anthony Murray-Oliver, the Turnbull Library’s Education Officer, has been elected a Fellow of the Art Galleries’ and Museums’ Association of New Zealand (fmanz). Mr MurrayOliver has been the Library’s delegate to AGMANZ since 1961 and a member of its Council since 1974. In 1969 he was the convener of the Association’s sub-committee on the revision of the Historic Articles Act and from 1977 to 1978 convener of the subcommittee responsible for the Code of Ethics recently adopted by the profession.

Fulbright scholar at Turnbull Associate Professor Alfred W. Crosby of the Department of American Studies at the University of Texas, Austin, is the recipient for 1979 of a Fulbright senior research award at the Alexander Turnbull Library. Dr Crosby, a graduate of Harvard and Boston universities, is the author of Epidemic and Peace, 1918 (1976); The Columbian Exchange ; Biological and Cultural Consequence of 1492 (1972); America, Russia, Hemp and Napoleon; American Trade with Russia and the Baltic, 1783-1812 (1965) and numerous periodical articles. He held a National Institutes of Health Fellowship at the University of California at San Francisco in 1971-73, a National Humanities Institute Fellowship at Yale 1975-76, the Cardoze Furst Professorship at Yale, Spring 1977, and won the Medical Writers’ Association Award for the best book on a medical subject for laymen in 1976. Dr Crosby’s special field of research is ecological history and he proposes to undertake a comparative study of the impact of European expansion on the aboriginal societies of North America and New Zealand.

Conference on New Zealand social history Over the weekend of 19-20 August some fifty historians, economists, anthropologists, geographers, sociologists, archivists and librarians gathered at the Turnbull Library for a conference on New Zealand social history. The purpose of the conference, given the title ‘New Directions’ by its organisers at the History Department of Victoria University, was to bring together by invitation a number of people engaged in research in New Zealand social history together with those in libraries and archival institutions managing relevant research collections to discuss some current research in progress and to consider the lines along which future research can and should proceed. Papers were circulated in advance to participants and two commentaries were invited on each. Papers were contributed by Ann R. Parsonson on Maori social history in the nineteenth century, David Hamer on towns in nineteenth century New Zealand, Claire Toynbee on class and social structure, Miles Fairburn on social mobility and opportunity in nineteenth-century New Zealand, Bill Oliver and Margaret Tennant on social welfare in the Liberal period and lan Breward on religion and New Zealand society. The papers, commentaries and records of the discussion will appear early in 1979 in a special issue of the New Zealand Journal of History edited by Professor David Hamer. The Turnbull Research Fund has made a grant ofsl ,000 to the New Zealand Journal of History

towards the cost of publishing the conference proceedings in this form and a grant for refreshments for the participants.

Recent bequests from Friends The Library’s collections will be strengthened by two recent bequests. Miss Alice Woodhouse ( Turnbull Library Record 11:1 (May 1978)4-5) made provision in her will for a bequest of S2OO for the purchase of appropriate books or manuscripts. The bequest will be administered by the Turnbull Library Endowment Trust Board and the items purchased will be marked suitably to acknowledge Miss Woodhouse’s gesture to the institution she served so well for so long. Mr lan Kerr, a long time user of the Library’s collections and author of Campbell Island, a History (1976) made provision for a bequest of books worth SI,OOO from his personal library. Mr Kerr’s collection did not contain any items not held by Turnbull so opportunity was taken to select a range of standard works in good condition for the Library’s special reserve collection. These books are kept separately from the general collection, are not available for use, and are destined for long-term preservation in Turnbull’s national collection of New Zealand books.

Archdeacon Lloyd’s correspondence acquired In August 1849 Rev. John Frederick Lloyd (1810-1875) arrived in Auckland where, as fellow of St. John’s College with particular responsibility for the training of native clergy, as vicar of St. Paul’s Auckland, and as Archdeacon of Waitemata, he became one of a small group of clergy closely associated with Bishop Selwyn and thus involved with the development of the Church of England in New Zealand. The Library has recently purchased Lloyd’s correspondence, 1849-1890, a collection of around ninety letters carefully cherished by his descendants. Archdeacon Lloyd’s letters provide detailed accounts ofjourneys in the Waikato and Taranaki districts with incisive comment on conditions, customs, the war situation in the 1860 s and people—Maoris, officials and settlers. The letters fall into three groups; those written to his wife while absent from Auckland and close to land disputes in Taranaki, 1857, and others written from the scene of hostilities in the Waikato, 1863, contain frank comment. Letters to his family in Ireland are written in fine detail with his approach epitomised in an account of a journey with his wife through the Waikato, 1853, and revealing deep empathy with the Maori people: ‘I do not know of any part of Europe where a traveller is so secure as in this country among the

natives’. The third group comprises letters from Bishops Selwyn, Abraham and Cowie andJ.C. Patteson, Bishop of Melanesia, and C.M. Yonge, the latter’s biographer; there are some later family letters. Archdeacon Lloyd’s association with Bishop Selwyn brought him close to the Auckland triumvirate of Selwyn, Sir William Martin, Chief Justice, and William Swainson, Attorney General, and his comment will be evaluated in that context.

The 1979 Turnbull Library Prints The Endowment Trust has chosen Christopher Aubrey as the artist whose work will be reproduced in this year’s issue of colour prints. Relatively unknown —and, indeed, with a rather shadowy identity—Aubrey painted a great many most attractive watercolours toward the end of last century. His paintings provide historical records, particularly of provincial towns, that are now of considerable value to the researcher. For some time it has been hoped that Aubrey could be included in the print series but an appropriate set could not be assembled until the fortunate purchase of a panoramic view of Wellington last year. The three prints will be of the Wellington view which looks north toward Thorndon from the vicinity of the University, a pleasantly rural scene in what is now central Masterton and a period piece of Brougham Street on Mount Victoria. The fourth print on the folder containing the full set shows early Eketahuna. On the text sheet there will be black and white reproductions of a view of Oriental Bay and of the battery buildings of the Woodstock goldmine near Waihi. All the paintings were made in the eighteen-nineties. It is anticipated that the Aubrey Prints will be released about August next with the usual public announcements. The edition will be limited to the customary 2,500 sets. A new edition of the Prints Catalogue is now available. All Turnbull Prints still in stock are illustrated in black and white, including the 1977 Heaphy Prints and 1978 Earle Prints. The catalogue will be supplied free on request to Box 12-349, Wellington.

Aviation in New Zealand exhibition For the New Year holiday period the Library mounted an exhibition entitled ‘Aviation in New Zealand’, which was on display until the end of February 1979. This topic has always had considerable public appeal, an important factor in planning exhibitions for the holiday period, and was particularly appropriate as 1978 marked the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Wright brothers’ first flight and the fiftieth anniversary of Kingsford Smith’s first crossing of the

Tasman. The exhibition made use ofall the Library’s collections and was enhanced by the loan of items from the National Museum, the Union Steam Ship Co. and Air New Zealand. In planning the exhibition it was hoped to show the development of civil and military aviation in New Zealand up to the 19405, and also to capture some of the freshness and excitement which characterised aviation in an earlier era. It was also hoped that the exhibition would attract more material related to aviation into the Library’s collections, and already information leading to possible acquisitions has appeared. Not the least valuable aspect of the exercise has been the cooperation with the Aviation Historical Society of New Zealand, whose members have been generous in providing information and checking the accuracy of information contained in the captions.

Cook bicentennial memorial publication To mark the bicentenary of the death of Captain James Cook rn at Kealakekua in Hawaii on 14 February 1779 the Alexander Turnbull Library Endowment Trust Board has published the text of a lecture ‘The Death of Captain Cook’ given by Cook’s editor and biographer J. C. Beaglehole OM. The lecture, first published in a periodical in 1964, has not previously been issued separately as a monograph. The Endowment Trust Board, conscious of the value that John Beaglehole placed on the physical book, comfortable to the hand and pleasing to the eye, and his belief, shared with Alexander Turnbull, that scholarship deserves the courtesy of good printing, commissioned Alan Loney’s Hawk Press to produce a limited edition of 50 copies printed on one of the Library’s Albion presses on dampened hand-made paper and quarter bound by hand in oasis goatskin and cloth. From this typesetting a facsimile edition has been produced in 1000 copies by Whitcoulls to enable this example of New Zealand book design and printing to be made available to a wider audience at a modest cost. The hand-printed limited edition will sell for $l3O and the facsimile for $lO. Half of the facsimile edition has been reserved for Friends of the Turnbull Library and these copies are available to members at a substantial discount on the retail price.