Notes and Comments

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 12, Issue 2, 1 October 1979, Page 115

Notes and Comments

Turnbull Research Fund A grant of SIO,OOO has been made to the Endowment Trust’s Research Fund by the Minister of Internal Affairs from lottery funds. The Hon. Alan Highet, in announcing the grant, expressed strong support for the principle of encouraging research leading to publication as a means of bringing the Library’s collections to a wider audience. The Board of the Endowment Trust at its June 1979 meeting resolved to publicise the availability of grants to assist research based on the Library’s collections and to invite applications during 1979 from New Zealand residents and New Zealanders living abroad.

Maori specialist position created The Library has recently been given approval to create a new position of Subject Specialist (Maori Manuscripts) to develop the Maori language manuscript collections as a national resource for scholarly research, and to manage a Maori Texts Copying Project to make copies of unique Maori manuscripts and rare Maori printed books, periodicals and newspapers available in microform. Because of staff shortages in conservation and in the National Library’s Microfilm Unit, it has been decided to defer work on the Maori Texts Copying Project and to concentrate on identifying the demand from teaching and research institutions, on assessing the resources available in public institutions, identifying significant collections in other hands and developing the collections in the Turnbull Library. Ms Sharon Dell, BA(HONS), DIP nzls, has been appointed to the position and is undertaking a Maori language course at Victoria University to develop her language skills.

Urewera Notebook launched in Library On 23 April 1979, at the invitation of the Oxford University Press, a small group of scholars, publishers, booksellers and library staff gathered in the Turnbull Library’s exhibition area for a ceremony to launch Professor lan Gordon’s edition of the Urewera Notebook of Katherine Mansfield. John Griffin, Oxford’s manager in New Zealand, welcomed guests, spoke briefly on the book and apologised for the delays in publication which had prevented Professor Gordon, who had gone overseas, from being present.

The Chief Librarian paid tribute to Professor Gordon’s contributions to Mansfield scholarship and welcomed the publication of Mansfield’s Urewera notebook 0f1907 as evidence of the coming of age of Mansfield studies in New Zealand. He also announced that the Library had recently acquired some Mansfield material from the estate of P. A. Lawlor and the Guy and Maude Morris Mansfield collection. The availability of such strong resources for Mansfield studies at the Turnbull, coupled with the growing number of Mansfield scholars, could well lead to the development of an international centre for Katherine Mansfield studies based in the Alexander Turnbull Library.

Patrick Anthony Lawlor, obe Pat Lawlor, one of the small band of booklovers who brought the Friends of the Turnbull Library into being on 16 May 1939, died in Auckland on 19 January 1979, aged 86. He was the first honorary secretary of the Friends, served with distinction on its committee and held the position of president between 1960 and 1964. In 1962 extracts from his diary were published in the Record. On the foundation meeting he records that ‘Most of the book enthusiasts of the city were there. Why do booklovers look so sad —morose even? They should be the happiest people in the world. . . . Johannes Andersen, though, was almost scowling; A. E. Currie, aggressive as though somebody had split an infinitive; Prof. Shelley with fierce challenging eye; . . . V. R. Gunn as though every one present had borrowed a book from him; and Alan Mulgan as though he had missed his last bus back to York Bay. ... A strong executive augurs well for the future particularly with Ilott as president and Graham Bagnall my right hand man as secretary and treasurer. Good things must come of this meeting.’ (Turnbull Library Record, XV, November 1962, p. 4).

Pat Lawlor participated actively in many of the ‘good things’ that resulted during the first 25 years of the existence of the Friends, and some of them are recorded in his diary. With time, increasing years, and a reluctance to venture out to evening meetings, Pat Lawlor participated less in the formal business of the Friends though he remained a staunch supporter of the Library. He accepted philosophically the fact that the Library, and the Friends, had changed in recent years and that their supporters were now drawn from a wider range than the booklovers of 1939. Before he left to live in Auckland Pat Lawlor donated substantial quantities of ephemera, photographs and periodicals and from his estate the Library has now secured ownership of the collection of files on literary figures which he built up over his lifetime and deposited in the Library in 1975 on indefinite loan. Pat Lawlor was a journalist,

writer, editor, collector, dealer, publisher, committee-man, organiser of charitable appeals and distinguished Catholic layman; in these pages he would wish to be remembered simply as a bookman.

Ray Grover farewelled Late in April 1979 a ceremony was held in the Turnbull exhibition area to mark Ray Grover’s service to the Library on his departure to take up the position of Librarian-in-charge of the Joint Teachers’ Colleges Library at Epsom in Auckland. He began in library work as a reference assistant at the Turnbull in 1959, was Manuscripts Librarian 1962-3, librarian in charge of cataloguing 1963-5, Reference Librarian 1965-7 and Assistant Chief Librarian 1968-79. In 1970 he took up an Anzac Fellowship for research in Australia and in 1975 was awarded a Bursary in Letters by the New Zealand Literary Fund. The Chief Librarian spoke of Ray Grover’s half a professional lifetime in the service of an idea of a library and his fierce loyalty to the Turnbull. ‘People will remember Ray for many things ... as a friendly, approachable person who cared about other people ... as a professional, as a subject specialist ... as a negotiator for better salaries and conditions for Public Service librarians . . . but the things that will remain after he has gone are those that were part of his idea of this library. . . . His enthusiasm for good architecture is displayed all around us in the Free Lance Building, converted from a printer’s bindery to a place fit for Alexander Turnbull’s books, and will surely show up in the Turnbull accommodation in the new National Library building for which he did so much of the thinking and planning. His imprint on the collections, especially on our holdings of copies of manuscripts from Australian libraries, of literary papers, of trade union archives, and of the growing oral history archives, will be a permanent reminder of his contributions. . . . Ray Grover has become a part of the history of the Turnbull Library, and of an idea.’

Early music exhibition The current widespread revival of interest in early European music, that is music before about 1750, has not passed unnoticed in the Turnbull Library. An exhibition of manuscript music and music printed before 1800 was mounted between March and May 1979 by Philip Parkinson with the assistance of several staff members who are practising musicians with an interest in early music. A survey of the Turnbull’s holdings revealed about 40 items largely of English origin, but including a number of Welsh editions of Handel and two interesting examples of continental music printing, a Venetian double impression plainsong manual of 1513 and Rousseau’s Traite

de la viole (Paris, 1686). The Library also holds the scarce Ariosto lessons for viola d’amore (London, 1728), the violin sonatas of Geminiani and Corelli, several popular compendia of Scots and Welsh barderie, two books published by the Playford firm, and works by Arnold, Galliard, Arne and Abel. Early editions of Handel include Alexander’s Feast, the Messiah, Acis and Galathea, and Overtures Fitted to the Harpsichord or Spinnett [sic]. Manuscripts included in the exhibition ranged from a fragment of plainsong probably in the neumatic notation of St Gall (9th ? century) and antiphonaries of the fourteenth and fifteenth century to a finely written copy ofGalliard’s ‘Hymn of Adam and Eve’ (about 1740). Much interest was attracted by the well-known twelfth century English manuscript of the theoretical treatises of Boethius (‘De Musica’) and Guido d’Arezzo (‘Micrologus’ etc) from Alexander Turnbull’s own collection.

Pages from large lectern antiphonaries were loaned for exhibition by Maxwell Fernie and Elizabeth Hanson. Attractive photographic enlargements of the musical section of the Triumph of Emperor Maximilian, a fine set of woodcuts engraved by Hans Burgkmair (ca. 1515) reproduced from the Library’s copy of the Vienna edition of 1796, the last to have been printed direct from the original woodblocks, were a feature of the exhibition. At the opening of the exhibition an invited audience of local musicians heard Ross Harvey speak on the history of music printing with special emphasis on the examples on display. Mr Harvey will be contributing an article on the collection to a later issue of the Record.

New Zealand Bibliographic Unit created In a major redistribution of bibliographical functions within the National Library the Turnbull Library’s Catalogue Section has transferred the responsibility for the current and retrospective New Zealand National Bibliography, a task it took up on the creation of the National Library in 1966, together with some other national bibliographical control functions, to a newly created New Zealand Bibliographic Unit. The Unit is to assume all of the National Library’s responsibilities for the bibliographic control of New Zealand publications. Initially the Bibliographic Unit will be a section of the Turnbull but in due course pass to the control of a central core of services under the Deputy National Librarian. Miss K. S. Williams, formerly the Turnbull’s chief cataloguer, has been appointed to head the new unit. The staff of the Unit are housed on the top floor of the Mayfair building in the offices formerly occupied by the National Librarian.

Repair binding specialist The woefully thin ranks of hand-binders in New Zealand are to be strengthened by the return of Mr Frank Levick to New Zealand. Mr Levick will be joining Modern Bookbinding Ltd in Wainuiomata and the firm has announced that it will now be able to offer a highly specialised service in the restoration and repair of old and fine bindings.

The 1979 Turnbull Library Prints The Christopher Aubrey prints, described in detail in the last issue, are now on sale. The three prints are available singly ($4 each) or as a set (sl2) with an illustrated text sheet in a folder bearing a fourth print. Members of the Friends of the Turnbull Library receive a 10% discount.