Alexander Turnbull Library

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 15, Issue 2, 1 October 1982, Page 133

Alexander Turnbull Library

J. E. TRAUE

Report by the Chief Librarian for the year 1981182

The Alexander Turnbull Library is a specialised research institution within the National Library, the primary objective of which is to contribute to the body of public knowledge by building on and preserving its research collections on New Zealand, the Pacific, early printed books, John Milton and his times, and the arts of the printed book, and by encouraging research and publication based on these collections. The Library has been assigned responsibility within the National Library for the long-term preservation of the national collection of library material relating to New Zealand and the people of New Zealand.

THE USE OF THE RESEARCH COLLECTIONS The Turnbull’s obligations under the National Library Act are threefold; to develop, maintain, and provide access to its collections and resources. The rapid growth in recent years of public demand to use the New Zealand collections, in a time of restraints on staffing, has affected seriously the Library’s ability to maintain a proper balance between these three obligations. During the year it became imperative to redirect staff resources towards the development, organisation and maintenance of the collections, and the Minister of Education, on the advice of the Trustees, approved a temporary reduction in the hours of public access from 55 to 47.5 hours per week. Saturday and evening opening hours were maintained but on week days the Library opens to the public at 10.30 a.m. instead of 9.00 a.m. This reduction in hours has led to criticism from university staff and professional research workers. The Library is examining a number of alternative approaches to bring the available staffing resources and current user demand into a better balance, including the issue of readers’ tickets.

For a research library, the most effective and appropriate means of making its resources available to the widest possible audience is by the promotion of research and publication based on its collections. During the year several hundred publications appeared containing materials derived from the Library’s collections. The Research Endowment Fund made grants to seven people during the year, including a substantial sum to assist with the translating and editing for publication of the Library’s microfilm copies of unpublished accounts of the French exploring expeditions to New Zealand from 1769 to 1840. The Endowment Trust made grants to assist the publication of an important manuscript on Pacific history held by the Library and a catalogue of Maori sound recordings. A national conference of musicologists was sponsored by the Library and the

Research Endowment Fund during the New Zealand visit of Professor Howard Mayer Brown from the University of Chicago. The research programme has been supported by grants from the Todd Foundation and the Ilott Trust and income from the sale of the Cooper Prints and the Heaphy Prints (issued in association with the Fletcher Holdings’ Charitable Trust). During the year two issues of the T urtibull Library Record were published by the Friends of the Turnbull Library, four reproductions of original watercolours by Charles Heaphy were issued in the prints series, and a prospectus issued for the reproductions of the John Abbot paintings of the Insects of Georgia. The third instalment of the National Register of Archives and Manuscripts was issued in July 1981, and now that an editor has been appointed it should be possible to issue more frequent instalments of this major tool for the location of the national resources of archives and manuscripts. The Library continues to operate the New Zealand central registry for the Early Imprints Project, a co-operative venture to record all books printed before 1801 held in Australia and New Zealand.

Six exhibitions were mounted in the Library: ‘Contemporary German Fine Printing’; ‘Etahi Pukapuka Maori’, a display of Maori language books and manuscripts with supporting graphic materials; Charles Heaphy’s paintings and drawings; paintings and drawings by the Hodgkins family; ‘Fine and Fancy’, a selection from the rare book collections; and ‘Perishing Cold, Perishable Gold’, an exhibition to mark the first hundred years of the frozen meat trade. The Friends of the Turnbull Library, as well as holding regular evening meetings, inaugurated a new series of lunchtime winter lectures for the Library during June. The theme for 1981 was ‘New Zealand through the Arts’ and the speakers were Sir Tosswill Woollaston, Allen Curnow, Jack Body, and Witi Ihimaera.

BUILDING THE RESEARCH COLLECTIONS Donations during the year fell from 436 to 407. The Library is continuing to be very selective in accepting donations, and donors of institutional archives are being asked to assist with the preliminary sorting and organising of their records. The Library continues to receive, under the compulsory deposit provisions of the Copyright Act administered by the General Assembly Library, a comprehensive range of materials published in New Zealand for the national collection of last resort. An order was placed for Banks’ Florilegium, a monumental set of coloured prints of the plants collected by Sir Joseph Banks during Cook’s first Pacific voyage, to be published in 34 parts over six years at a cost of £45,000. The Library acknowledges grants from the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Alexander Turnbull Library Endowment Trust, and the National Library’s special fund, to enable one copy to be held in a national institution. With a grant from the Endowment Trust the Library purchased for £5,000 from the Royal Commonwealth Society in London a unique set of watercolours of New Zealand plants by Miss Martha King, which were painted for the New Zealand Company in the early 1840 s.

Agreement has been reached on the purchase of the remainder of the late Frank Sargeson’s papers to complete the holdings of Sargeson papers acquired in 1971, and negotiations are well advanced for the acquisition of several other collections of literary papers. Major acquisitions of the archives of institutions included those of the New Zealand Pharmaceutical Society, the New Zealand Public Service Association, the Gear Meat Company, and the Goodman Group of companies. The remainder of the Te Whatahoro Jury papers from the Library of the Maori Purposes Fund Board were deposited during the year and negotiations are proceeding for the acquisition of other important collections of Maori manuscripts. The photograph collection benefited from the loan of several collections for copying and the donation of the Chappell Collection relating to the Thames-Coromandel goldfields, that of Miss E. E. Williams, an early professional photographer in Wanganui, and several others. The visit of the Map Librarian to Australia has resulted in a steady flow of copies of New Zealand maps to fill gaps in the Turnbull collection. The Composers’ Foundation is making an annual grant of SI,OOO to the Archive of New Zealand Music, and this year the money is being used to accelerate the Archive’s oral history programme. The Music Archive is also receiving copies of the tapes of the Cambridge Music Schools. A collection of contemporary German fine printing was donated to the Library through the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and with the assistance of the Endowment Trust several significant purchases were made for the arts of the printed book collection. Notable purchases for the New Zealand book collection included John Murray’s An account of the Phormium Tenax or New Zealand Flax . . . (London, 1836) printed on paper made from flax, and two very rare Russian language pamphlets published in 1904 and 1906.

CONSERVING THE RESEARCH COLLECTIONS Research libraries, as custodians of the records of the past, have a general responsibility to ensure that their collections are available not just to their present users but to future generations as well. The Turnbull Library has additional responsibilities because of the high proportion of unique, rare and valuable items in its collections and its special role as the custodian of the national copies of last resort of all New Zealand books and a substantial proportion of New Zealand serial titles. The resources of staff and materials available to the Library for the long-term preservation of its collections are still inadequate and measures are being continued to improve short-term preservation. Unless demand on some parts of the collections diminishes significantly, thus reducing deterioration due to handling, measures will be necessary to restrict access to more items. During the year Mr O. A. Clarke, the Library’s conservation technician, spent six weeks in Australia, gaining practical experience in the conservation laboratory of the Australian National Archives, visiting other conservation units, and attending the conference of the Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Materials. In April 1981 two conservation staff were called on to lead a small team of museum and archives

professionals to the Thames-Paeroa area after serious flooding affected local collections. The staff of the conservation unit contributed to short training courses on the repair of documents in Hastings, Dunedin and Wellington, and provided training in the unit’s laboratory for a student from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery conservation course, one from the Canberra College of Advanced Education course, and the conservation technician from the National Archives in Wellington. The Library is conscious of the lack of trained conservators in New Zealand and welcomes the proposal to the Minister for the Arts to establish an agency to encourage the proper development of the profession.

NEW ZEALAND BIBLIOGRAPHIC UNIT In 1979 the New Zealand Bibliographic Unit was created as a separate section within the Turnbull with responsibility for the National Library’s programme for the bibliographic control of New Zealand publications. On 1 June 1981 the unit became part of the core services of the National Library and responsible to the Deputy National Librarian.

Publications, Lectures, etc. by the Staff 1981182 BARTON, P. L. ‘Seventh New Zealand Map Keepers’ Circle Seminar; Report’, New Zealand Mapkeepers’ Circle Newsletter, 12 (May 1982). Map transit and storage: paper presented to the New Zealand Map-Keepers’ Circle Map and Plan Conservation Workshop, Victoria University of Wellington, 3-5 February 1982. CoLLINSON, F. M. One-man exhibition of recent paintings in acrylic, held at the Bowen Galleries, Wellington, 15 February-6 March 1982. HOARE, M. E. ‘Australian Society of Archivists’ Conference [Melbourne, 22-26 May 1981]’, Archifacts, 19 (September 1981) 492-4. ‘Captainjames Cook RN: Man, Myth and Reality’, Otaki Historical Society Journal, 4 (1981) 4-8.

‘The Collector: a Biography of Andreas Reischek, by Michael King’, (review) Archifacts, 21 (March 1982) 569-70. Commentary on papers in session ‘The Archivists’ Dilemma: Order or Chaos’, in Promoting the Better Use of Archives in Australia; Papers from the 1981 Conference of the Australian Society of Archivists [Melbourne, 23-25 May 1981], Canberra, A.S.A., 1981, 190-3. ‘History and Us’ (editorial), Archifacts, 20 (December 1981), 512-13. ‘The National Register: Over the First Hurdle Al-AIOOO, 1979-1981’, Archifacts, 19 (September 1981) 509-10. ‘Natural History Manuscript Resources in the British Isles, by G. D. R. Bridson, V. C. Phillips and A. P. Harvey’ (review), Archifacts, 20 (December 1981) 537-8.

‘Report of the Royal Commission to Inquire into the Circumstances oj the Convictions of Arthur Allen Thomas . . .’ (review), Archifacts, 19 (September 1981) 502-4. Botany and the history of science in Australasia; a review. Paper delivered as Chairman of the Session ‘History of Botanical Exploration in Australasia’, XIII International Botanical Congress, University of Sydney, September 1981. Editing the Resolution journal ofjohann Reinhold Forster; the contribution to ethnography. Paper read to graduate research seminar, Department of Anthropology, University of Auckland, 18 March 1982.

New Zealand science and the Australian connection, 1800-1930; paper delivered at an international conference on Scientific Colonialism, a CrossCultural Comparison, sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, and the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Melbourne, May 1981. MINSON, M. F. Artists’ papers; the collecting policy of the Alexander Turnbull Library. Address to ARLIS/ANZ special session on artists’ papers, School of Architecture, University of Auckland, 5 May 1982.

Some early watercolours in the Alexander Turnbull Library; lecture to W.E.A. watercolour class, 4 May 1982. PALMER, J. M. ‘The Archive of New Zealand Music, Alexander Turnbull Library’, National Library Bulletin, 16 (September 1981) 1-3. ‘Biographical, Reference and Iconography Indexes [in the Archive of New Zealand Music]’, New Zealand Music Libraries Newsletter, 4 (July 1981) 5-6. ‘Preserving New Zealand’s Musical Heritage’, Music News, 1 (February 1982) 5.

‘Publicity and the Alexander Turnbull Library’s Archive of New Zealand Music’, New Zealand Music Libraries Newsletter, 5 (December 1981) 7. PARKINSON, P. G. Iridea Illuminating Observations on the Publication, Typijication, Orthography and History of the Name Iridea Borg 1826 (Gigartinaceae, Gigartinales, Rhodophyta) T ogether with Some Remarks on the Nomenclature of Related Genera and of Certain Problematical Species of the Gigartinaceae. Auckland, Pettifogging Press, 1981. (Phycologiae Historiae Analecta Autodidactica, Fasciculus Tertius) 28p. An Ode Upon the Passing of the Bibliographic Unit from the Turnbull Library, Kalendis luniis MCMLXXXI. Printed for the subscribers by I. Denny at the Pettifogging Press and are to be Soulde at Mr Parson’s Coffee-House, Over Against St Andrews on the Terrace, Wellington [l9Bl]. [B]p.

RETTER, D. G. ‘ The John A. Lee Diaries, 1936-1940 ’ (review) Archifacts, 20 (December 1981) 536-7. SARGISON, P. A. The Alexander Turnbull Library and its collections; lecture given to W.E.A. local history class, 16 September 1981. The Alexander Turnbull Library and the researcher; lecture to North Otago Scientific and Historical Society, 10 June 1981. Sullivan, J. P. ‘Daniel Manders Beere; Correspondence from John Sullivan’, History of Photography , 6 (January 1982) 83.

Cataloguing a collection; paper delivered at the Photographic Conservation Seminar, Wellington, 28-30 August 1981. Public access to the collections, and publication of photographs; paper delivered at Photographic Conservation Seminar, Wellington, 28-30 August 1981. TRAUE, J. E. ‘Vanished Paintings?’ Comment, 15 (April 1982) 18. Historic Wairarapa homesteads. Address at the opening of an exhibition of photographs, Wairarapa Arts Centre, Masterton, 22 November 1981. Library management in the face of cutbacks. Address to Special Libraries and Information Services Section, N.Z.L.A., Wellington, 10 November 1981.

The purposes of the Alexander Turnbull Library. Address to the Wellington Branch, N.Z. Federation of University Women, 11 May 1981. Today’s photographs in tomorrow’s archives. Address to Photographic Conservation Seminar, Wellington, 30 August 1981. In addition several members of the staff lectured to students of the Department of Librarianship, Victoria University, and the School of Library Studies, Wellington Teachers’ College.