Research Notes

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 20, Issue 2, 1 October 1987, Page 101

Research Notes

The National Library building opened to the public on 1 July 1987. Unfortunately not all of the Turnbull areas were fully operational; some collections were still in storage in other buildings and others could not be unpacked. Despite these shortcomings the main services of the Library were available to readers on the first day. To mark the opening to the public of the Turnbull in its new home after 14 years in temporary accommodation around Wellington, the first day readers were issued with numbered certificates, printed on the Library’s hand press by Rachel Salmond, rewarding them for their loyalty and patience by admitting them to membership of the Alexandrian Club.

The publications sales section of the Library has now closed down and in future all Turnbull publications, whether issued by the Library, the Endowment Trust Board or the Friends, will be on sale from the National Library Bookshop on the ground floor of the National Library building on Molesworth Street. The bookshop will handle counter sales, postal orders, and trade orders. The traditional discounts for Friends and for the trade will be maintained. A new catalogue of the Library’s wide range of publications is in preparation and will be available later this year from the National Library Bookshop.

A number of the card catalogues maintained by the National Library have been microfilmed and are being made available for sale as microfiche, including the two main Turnbull public catalogues (the New Zealand and Pacific book catalogue, and the catalogue of general books). The Turnbull’s users, so long accustomed to the delights of hand written, typed and mimeographed records on cards in those comforting ranges of rimu cabinets, will now have to grapple with the micro revolution which has transformed so many overseas libraries. We are not proposing to follow the example of the New York Public Library and hold a party to farewell the card catalogues, just to shed a tear or two in private.

The catalogue records for the book collections (apart from the special catalogue of early printed books), are now available to users only as microfiche and the cards have gone into storage awaiting a rigorous check of the quality and completeness of the microfiche copies. New microfiche readers have been purchased to provide users with the best quality images possible from the fiche. The main advantage of the new microfiche catalogue records is their wide availability both within the National Library building and in other libraries in New Zealand and overseas.

Penny Griffith, who has been associated with the Record since 1977, first as assistant editor and then from 1983 as joint editor, has resigned from the editorial staff on her transfer to the position of Deputy Director in the Reference and Interloan Service of the National Library. Her edito-

rial and typographical skills have made major contributions to the standards of presentation of the Record over the past ten years.

Towards the end of June the Library received permission to develop an on-line database which will considerably enhance access to the Oral History Collection. Information about tapes in the Collection will be stored on the National Library’s mainframe computer and will be searchable using the BRS software purchased last year. An analysis of user requirements will take place during July, after which the database will be designed in the expectation that it will come into operation early in October. This is the first such database to be sponsored by the Library, and it is hoped that in the future access to other collections can be improved using similar methods.

Grants from the Turnbull Library Research Endowment Fund have been made to Nicholas Boyack who is rewriting his thesis on the social history of New Zealand soldiers in World War I for publication by Allen and Unwin/Port Nicholson Press, and working with Dr J.O.C. Phillips on an edition of World War I soldier’s diaries; and to Professor Bernard Smith who will deliver the Turnbull lecture on 15 September and conduct seminars in Wellington on aspects of the early European artists in the Pacific. Bernard Smith is the author of European Vision and The South Pacific and the editor of the three volume edition of Captain Cook’s artists.

Miss B.J. Kirkpatrick took up her grant from the Research Endowment Fund in June to work on her bibliography of Katherine Mansfield’s works, to be published by Oxford University Press in 1988. Miss Kirkpatrick was given special access to the Mansfield collection for a month prior to the Library’s official opening on 1 July in order to enable her to meet her publisher’s deadline. She is the compiler of bibliographies on Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster and Edmund Blunden and is a former librarian of the Royal Anthropological Institute in London.

The New Zealand Oral History Archive, which was given temporary office accommodation by the National Library several years ago, has moved into accommodation in the Turnbull’s Pictorial Reference Service areas on the second floor of the Molesworth Street building. From the inception of the Archive the Turnbull has acted as the repository for its archival tapes.

During 1988 the one hundreth anniversary of the birth of Katherine Mansfield will be celebrated throughout the world. The Library has a particularly strong collection of materials relating to Mansfield, and would welcome relevant contributions for publication in the Turnbull Library Record.

The Library has a subscription to the Research Publications microform edition, Early English Newspapers 1622-1820, and is giving consideration

to purchasing selected runs of Harvester Press’s microfilm edition of eighteenth century English provincial newspapers. The advice of researchers and teachers in the early modern period is sought on the selection of appropriate series for purchase. The Turnbull’s holdings of early printed books and newspapers on microfilm are available to other libraries on interloan.

The National Library has established a fellowship, to be awarded annually, to mark the opening of the National Library building. The fellowship is intended to encourage scholarly use of the collections of the National Library and the production of publications based on them, and is open to persons resident in New Zealand or overseas. The fellowship is tenable for twelve months and has an annual value of $35,000. Applications close on 30 October 1987 for the inaugural year and thereafter on 1 May each year. Full details are available from the National Librarian, National Library of New Zealand, Private Bag, Wellington.

Request for information: Early references to large lizards A recent paper by Bauer & Russell (New Zealand Journal of Zoology , v. 13, 1986, 141-148) describes a new species of gecko with a total length of 622 mm and a snout-vent length over half as big again as any previously known in the family. The description is based on a single, mounted specimen in the Musee d’ Histoire Naturelle de Marseille in France. The specimen has absolutely no collection data with it and museum records give no indication of how or when it was acquired other than that it was presented in 1902. It was possibly obtained during the period 1833-1869 when the museum records were known to be inadequate. Features of this animal’s morphology and osteology place it in the genus Hoplodactylus which is so far known only from New Zealand. Furthermore, its general appearance, size and colour closely resemble those of large lizards reported from the northern part of the North Island last century, and the habitat and behaviour ascribed to those large lizards are not inconsistent with them being geckos.

It would be extremely valuable to tie the Marseilles specimen to a New Zealand source and to confirm the nineteenth century reports of large lizards in the North Island. The more obvious published and unpublished material relating to New Zealand zoology has been searched without finding any reference to large lizards being collected. However, it is possible that such a reference exists somewhere among manuscript or published works which deal with the non-zoological aspects of New Zealand’s history. Therefore all those working with such material are asked to report any references to large lizards, especially any that were collected. This request applies particularly to those working with French expeditionary manuscripts as it is conceivable that the specimen may have been carried to Marseilles by a crew member of one of the French exploring vessels. Addresses for correspondence are: A.H. Whitaker, R.D.I, Motueka, New Zealand, or A.M. Bauer, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley, Calif. 94720, U.S.A.