Research Notes

Turnbull Library Record, Volume XIX, Issue 1, 1 May 1986, Page 87

Research Notes

Just before the final text of this issue went to the printers we learned of the death in Sydney on 16 April of Graham Bagnall, former Chief Librarian and editor of the Record. An appreciation will appear in the October issue.

The last issue of the Record noted the need to move the services and collections at 44 The Terrace into interim accommodation before the transfer of all National Library operations into the new Molesworth Street building begins at the end of 1986. On 21 March 1986 this first shift was successfully completed. The Manuscripts Section moved to Castrol House (Dixon Street), where the bulk of its material was already stored, and a small reading area will be in operation (10.30-5p.m., Monday-Friday) until August 1986. Microfilms of printed materials are available through the National Library’s Reference and Interloan Services reading rooms. Other staff and collections (most to remain packed and inaccessible) are at Atlas House, 22 Ghuznee Street. Correspondence will continue, together with some limited direct services, chiefly from the Reference Section’s catalogues and indexes (l-5p.m., Monday-Friday) until August, but intending researchers are urged to write for detailed information on access.

The Photograph Section will close in mid-June to begin the huge task of organising and preparing its collection of nearly 400,000 negatives for the several types of archival storage in the new building. The possible inconvenience to users is regretted, but it is hoped that the expectation of the improved facilities of the new National Library building will compensate for the present short-term difficulties. Sales of publications and prints are available by mail, or in person at Ghuznee Street, 10.30-5p.m., Monday-Friday. The Library’s postal address remains unchanged (P.O. Box 12-349, Wellington) but a new phone number is in operation, (04) 846-169.

The second volume of Early Eyewitness Accounts of Maori Life, comprising the logs and journals of the Marion du Fresne visit to New Zealand in 1772, has been published by the Endowment Trust under the title Extracts from Journals Relating to the Visit to New Zealand in May-July 1772 of the French Ships Mascarin and Marquis de Castries. . . . The transcription and translation from the French was done by Isabel Ollivier, who is working on the fifth and final volume in Paris. The publication of the series is underwritten by Indosuez New Zealand Limited.

Victoria University Press in association with the Alexander Turnbull Library Endowment Trust has issued Oral Culture, Literacy and Print in Early New Zealand: the Treaty ofWaitangi, a revised version of a paper first

delivered by Professor D. F. McKenzie to the Bibliographical Society, London, on 15 February 1983. The original version was published in The Library in December 1984.

Douglas Lilburn’s University of Otago open lecture, delivered on 12 March 1969, has been published by the Endowment Trust under the title A Search for a Language. The publication was assisted by a grant from the New Zealand Composers Foundation to commemorate the seventieth birthday of Douglas Lilburn.

Sally Edridge’s Solomon Islands Bibliography to 1980 has been published by the Endowment Trust in association with the Institute of Pacific Studies in Suva and the Solomon Islands National Library. The bibliography, which runs to 476 pages with indexes, is the first comprehensive bibliography of the Solomon Islands.

The Research Endowment Fund has made grants to Miss B. J. Kirkpatrick for a visit to New Zealand to complete a bibliography of Katherine Mansfield to be published by Oxford University Press in their Soho series of literary bibliographies, and to Dr Ross Galbreath for research on a biography of Sir Walter Buller to be published by the New Zealand Government Printer.

The New Zealand United States Educational Foundation has approved a further Fulbright-Hays research fellowship at the Turnbull Library during 1987. Because of the shift of premises a Fulbright award was not sought for 1986.

The Scientific Distribution Committee of the Lottery Board has approved grants to the Research Endowment Fund during 1986/7 to support work by Dr Marshall Laird on a bibliography of natural history, and that by Isabel Ollivier in Paris on the final volume of Early Eyewitness Accounts of Maori Life.

A Bibliography of Writings about New Zealand Music Published to the End of 1983, compiled by D. R. Harvey, was published by Victoria University Press in late 1985. Much of the research was done in the Turnbull and publication was assisted by a grant from the Alexander Turnbull Library Endowment Trust.

A revised edition of the Library’s catalogue of publications, Windows upon our Heritage , is now available post free on request from the Library.