Alexander Turnbull Library

Turnbull Library Record, Volume XIII, Issue 2, 1 October 1980, Page 110

Alexander Turnbull Library

J. E. Traue

Report by the Chief Librarian for the year 1979/80

The Alexander Turnbull Library is responsible for developing, maintaining and encouraging the most appropriate use of the National Library's research collections of materials relating to New Zealand, the Pacific, early printed books, John Milton and his times, English literature and the development of the art of printing. It is responsible for the long-term preservation of the national collection of library materials relating to New Zealand and for the bibliographical control of New Zealand publications.

CONSERVING THE COLLECTIONS The use of the collections of research materials relating to New Zealand, especially the books and pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, paintings and drawings, photographs and manuscripts has outrun the ability of the Library to guarantee their long-term preservation. The delicate balance between discriminate use and preservation has been upset by the rise in broad public demand, which has continued despite a number of measures adopted in recent years. The Conservation Unit was established in 1970 and has developed gradually since then, but has not yet reached a capacity to meet the library's real needs. As public demand increases, restricted access to more items may be inevitable, to prevent irreparable damage. During the year temporary restrictions were placed on the photographic copying of illustrations in printed books and periodicals relating to New Zealand in order to protect copies of last resort from excessive handling. Users have been directed to copies of these books and periodicals held in other libraries. Restrictions on other materials will be necessary in the near future to ensure their preservation for the use of future generations. The work of the Conservation Laboratory has continued at a high level. A number of objects from the Legislative Department's display collections were conserved during the year. The Conservation Unit's national responsibilities in the field of paper conservation were acknowledged by the provision of training courses in the repair and maintenance of records on paper, and tuition for a binder from the Dunedin Public Library. The Conservation Officer took part in a two-day conservation course organised by the Centre for Continuing Education of Waikato University.

THE USE OF THE COLLECTIONS More scholars are using the collections for long-term research towards a publication. The general public is benefiting from the increasing availability, through books, periodicals, theses, posters, art reproductions, and radio and television broadcasts, of material from the collections. The Library's policy of stimulating serious research by providing financial assistance to scholars has been implemented through a number of grants and awards during the year. Professor A. W. Crosby of the University of Texas received a Fulbright-Hays award for five months in the Library for a book on European ecological imperialism, and Professor David Branagan of the University of Sydney received a grant from the

Australia-New Zealand Foundation for editorial work on the journal of Samuel Stutchbury. The Edowment Trust made a grant to Mr Vincent O'Sullivan for editorial work on the letters of Katherine Mansfield and the Research Endowment Fund made grants to I. F. G. Milner for a biography of Frank Milner based on the Milner papers in the Library and to John Thomson for research in the Archive of New Zealand Music for his history of music in New Zealand. The Research Endowment Fund received grants from the Sir John Ilott Charitable Trust and the Todd Foundation and SIO,OOO from the Minister of Internal Affairs from lottery profits.

During the year work began on the recording of all books printed before 1801 held in New Zealand for the Early Imprints Project, a cooperative venture to provide a detailed union catalogue of all such publications in Australia and New Zealand. The project will also provide the British Library with details of books for the Anglo-American Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalogue. Two senior positions in charge of special collections, a Curator for the art collection and a Music Librarian for the Archive of New Zealand Music, were created during the year. This gives further recognition to the importance of the Library's special subject collections and the need for specialists to interpret them to users.

Four exhibitions were mounted in the Library, a major one to mark the bicentenary of the death of Captain James Cook which drew on the collections of several other institutions; a display of photographs by William J. Harding; 'Entertainment Ephemera: posters and programmes from New Zealand's past'; and 'Sir Frederick Weld, pioneer pastoralist, politician and painter'. The first instalment of 250 entries of the National Register of Archives and Manuscripts was published by the National Library during the year. Regular monthly issues of the New Zealand National Bibliography appeared as well as the 1978 cumulation, and the Index to New Zealand Periodicals was made available in two four-monthly instalments and an annual cumulation. The Turnbull Library Endowment Trust published J. C. Beaglehole's Death of Captain Cook in a limited edition of 50 copies and a facsimile of 1000 copies. The Trust also issued two print series, the 1979 regular series of three paintings by Christopher Aubrey and an extra series of flower paintings by Emily Cumming Harris. The Friends of the Turnbull Library published two issues of the Turnbull Library Record.

BUILDING THE RESEARCH COLLECTIONS The growth of the collections is being deliberately retarded in order that the staff may cope with the backlogs of unprocessed materials. The Library is therefore continuing to be very selective in its acceptance of donations. Nevertheless donations were 421 compared with 317 last year. If growth has to be restricted further because of shortages of staff the ability of the collections to meet the demands of future users will be endangered. A notable donation during the year was that of 24 watercolours by Sir Frederick Weld, G.C.M.G., from his granddaughter Mrs Mary Scrope.

The art collections also benefited from the gift of 7 ink drawings and 2 watercolours by William Mein Smith. Substantial additions were made to the archive of New Zealand artists by gift and purchase, and portraits of several leading artistic and literary personalities, including Leo Bensemann, Ngaio Marsh, J. C. Beaglehole, O. E. Middleton and Ruth Dallas were purchased. The collections of early printed books were augmented by gifts from Mr A. C. Brassington and the deposit of some 100 volumes by the Wellington Law Society. An important collection of diaries and letters by William Colenso was purchased, and several major collections of private papers and institutional records, including those of Dr R. M. Campbell, Sir Arthur Tyndall, the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the New Zealand Nurses' Association, and the New Zealand Freedom League were donated. A major collection of photographs from the 1860 s to the 1890 s taken by D. M. Beere was purchased and the Library received by donation the Unity Theatre's collection of programmes. The fine printing collections were substantially augmented, with the aid of the Endowment Trust, by the purchase of several notable examples of contemporary English and American printing and an almost complete set of early Caxton Press imprints in mint condition. A special collection of New Zealand fine and hobby printing is being developed as part of the history of printing collection. A gift of money from the Ex Libris and Booklovers' Society is to be used to develop the fine printing collection and to encourage fine printing and binding in New Zealand.

The Library continues to receive for the national collection, under the compulsory deposit provisions of the Copyright Act administered by the General Assembly Library, a comprehensive range of materials published in New Zealand. We are indebted to those who have contributed by donation to the growth of the collections and acknowledge their generosity. A full list of donors is published annually in the Turnbull Library Record. The Alexander Turnbull Library Endowment Trust has continued to make funds available for the purchase of highly priced books, manuscripts, maps and pictures, and for related activities.

NEW ZEALAND BIBLIOGRAPHIC UNIT During the year, after some five years of discussion and planning, the New Zealand Bibliographic Unit was established with responsibility for the National Library's programmes of national bibliographical control of New Zealand publications. The main responsibilities of the Unit are the New Zealand National Bibliography , current and retrospective, formerly compiled in the catalogue section of the Turnbull Library, and the Index to New Zealand Periodicals, formerly compiled in General Services, National Library. The Unit, headed by Miss Sheila Williams, is currently under the control of the Turnbull but in due course will become part of the core services of the National Library and responsible to the Deputy National Librarian.

Publications, Lectures, etc by the Staff, 1979180

BARTON, P. L. 'Atlas of the South Pacific' (review), New Zealand Mapkeepers' Circle Newsletter 7 (October 1979) 18-19. " 'A Guide to the Selection and Acquisition of New Zealand Maps', Special Libraries Association. Geography and Map Division. Bulletin. 116 (June 1979) 36-9.

'Map librarian ship; an Introduction, by Mary Larsgaard' (review), New Zealand Libraries 42:1 (June 1979) 32-33; New Zealand Mapkeepers' Circle Newsletter 6 (March 1979) 13-14. 'The National Map Collection' (letter), New Zealand Mapkeepers' Circle Newsletter 7 (October 1979) 17. 'New Zealand Maps: Selection and Acquisition', Bulletin of the Society of University Cartographers 13:1 (1979) 80-1. 'New Zealand Metric Topographical Maps; 1:50 000 & 1:250 000', New Zealand Cartographic Journal 8:1 (June 1978) 25-7. J. S. Gross' (review) New Zealand Libraries 42: 3 & 4 (December 1979) 92-3.

The concept of a national map collection: is it possible? is it desirable; paper presented to the sth New Zealand Mapkeepers' Circle Seminar, University of Auckland, 31 January 1980. A National Union Catalogue of Maps (New Zealand): NUCM(NZ); paper presented to the sth New Zealand Mapkeepers' Circle Seminar, University of Auckland, 1 February 1980. Brooks, C. M. Problems of serials cataloguing under AACR 2 (with Thiam Chin); paper presented to N.Z.L.A. Workshop on AACR2, Wellington, 18 September 1979. Dell, S. E. 'Rangiatea'. In Historic Buildings of New Zealand: North Island, Auckland, Cassell, 1979, 254-9.

GRIFFITH, P. A. 'Alexander Turnbull's Bookplates', Turnbull Library Record 12:2 (October 1979) 105-11. Hoare, M. E. 'The Legacy ofj. R. Forster to European Science and Letters before Cook's Second Voyage'. In Captain James Cook: Image and Impact (ed. Walter Veit) Vol. 11, The Pacific Syndrome: Conditions and Consequences, Melbourne, The Hawthorn Press, 1979, 64-75. 'Two Centuries' Perceptions of James Cook: George Forster to Beaglehole'. In Captain fames Cook and His Times (ed. Robin Fisher and Hugh Johnston), Vancouver, Douglas and Mclntyre and London, Croom Helm, 211-28, 261-4.

(ed.) Enlightenment and New Zealand; Essays Commemorating the visit of Johann Reinhold Forster and George Forster to Queen Charlotte and Dusky Sounds, Wellington, National Art Gallery, 1979, 32p. Boys, Urchins, Men; A History of the Boys' Brigade in Australia and Papua-New Guinea 1882-1976, Sydney, A. H. and A. W. Reed, 1980, 287 p. 'The National Register of Archives and Manuscripts (1979-?): An Editorial Retrospect', Archifacts 11 (September 1979), 227-30.

'The New National Register oj Archives and Mauscripts in New Zealand', National Library Bulletin 4 (June 1979) 6p. ' "Our Comrades Beyond the Seas": Colonial Youth Movements 1880-1920' Turnbull Library Record 12:2 (October 1979) 73-94. A Sense of History; A Commemorative Publication for fohn Cawte Beaglehole OM about James Cook's Landing Sites in New Zealand, by Frances Porter (review), New Zealand Listener 96:2056 (2 June 1979) 68-9. 'Forster and Son' New Zealand Listener 93: 2070 (8 September 1979) 28. 'Making History': (guest editorial) Otaki Historical Society Journal 2 (1979), 2. Captain James Cook: new findings of the bicentenary years; lecture given to Otaki Historical Society, 2 July 1979. Obtaining Manuscript Materials; and Contributing to the National Register of Archives and Manuscripts; lectures to the ARANZ Training Course for Curators of Archives & Manuscripts Collections, Wellington, 19-23 November, 1979.

MILLEN, J. E. 'Brave, Brash, Bold and Beautiful—Reel Women', Broadsheet 68 (April 1979) 16-17, 39. 'Debbie' (short story). In The Serpent and the Cabbage Tree, Wellington, Serpent Publications, 1979, 12-15. 'Sunday Dinner' (short story). Pencraft 1:6 (December 1979) 16-18.

PARKINSON, P. G. Halymenia, Being a Critical Account of the Confined Nomenclature of Halymenia C. A. Agardh 1817, (Halymeniaceae, Cryptonemiales, Rhodophyta) with Reflections on the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature and Corrections to Certain Recent Work in which it has been Disregarded, Auckland, The Pettifogging Press, 1980 (Phycologiae Historiae Analecta Autodidactica, Fasciculus Primus), 20p. STARKE, J. I. 'Mr Weld's Boots or Doing Business', Turnbull Library Record 12:2 (October 1979) 113-4.

Basic finding aids; lecture to ARANZ Training Course for Curators of Archives and Manuscripts, Wellington, 21 November 1979. Octavius Hadfield; lecture to Otaki Historical Society, 3 March 1980. The resources of the Turnbull Library; lecture to WEA course, Archives and Tracing your Ancestors, Wellington, 3 April 1979. Writing a biography; lecture to New Zealand Women Writers' Society, Wellington, 10 March 1979.

SULLIVAN, J. 'The Henry Wright Collection of Photographic Negatives', Tumbull Library Record 12:1 (May 1979) 37-44. — Photographic resources and conservation; lecture (with M. Fitzgerald) to the ARANZ Training Course for Curators of Archives and Manuscripts Collections, Wellington, 22 November 1979. Photographs and the librarian: paper delivered at N.Z.L.A. Conference, Dunedin, February 1979.

Williams, K. S. Treatment of non-book materials in AACR2; paper presented to N.Z.L.A. Workshop on AACR2, Wellington, 18 September 1979. Wylie , E. D. 'Big House', In Opportunities for Change, Volume II: Individual Initiative in the Community, Auckland, Community Forum, 1979, 11-15.

Obituary The deaths of two former presidents and long-serving committee members of the Friends of the Turnbull Library, Canon Nigel Williams and Dr Denis Glover, are regretfully announced. Tributes will be printed in the next issue of the Record.