6.15pm Wednesday 10 September 2008
Former Speakers of the House and chairs of the Library Committee,
The Honourable Jonathan Hunt and the Honourable Doug Kidd.
Members of Parliament.
Clerk of the House, Mary Harris and her predecessor David McGee.
General Manager of Parliamentary Service, Geoff Thorn and his predecessors Peter Brookes and John O’Sullivan.
Senior public servants, the library community, parliamentary staff and distinguished guests.
We are here this evening for one of Parliament’s special occasions that serves to remind us all of the great vision, commitment and belief our forebears had in this institution.
This month marks the 150th anniversary of the appointment of the Parliamentary Library’s first librarian. Captain F.E Campbell, Clerk of the House, was appointed librarian on the 20th of September 1858. Ever since that time, the Parliamentary Library has played a vital role in supporting representative and parliamentary democracy.
Since 1858 the Parliamentary Library’s role has been to provide information to Parliament.
However, not quite as we know it today.
In its early days it was more of a private gentleman’s Library with open fires, writing desks, comfy chairs and a liberal attitude to smoking indoors.
Through the 19th and 20th centuries the Library became a true treasure house including rare books and artworks. I note that it took until the end of the 19th century for the Library to be housed in a fire-resistant building.
Having information in the Library was never enough – parliamentarians needed the assistance of experts to retrieve accurate information efficiently and promptly.
I expect that over a century and a half the idea of promptness has changed significantly. Today a Member may not simply require accurate and impartial information but he or she may require it in 10 minutes flat.
And I can say that the 60 full-time library staff with specialist research and analytical skills regularly deliver in that time frame, as well as with extended searches which can take weeks. As many as 15-hundred searches are completed every month.
However, given my time in the Chair, I can vouch for the fact that the Library is no longer asked, as it was in the past, for fine literature and classical references to embellish Members speeches.
A 150 year tradition of providing top-quality information is both a responsibility and a challenge for those who have built on the early ambitions for the Parliamentary Library.
It is the book we launch today that chronicles the challenge that our librarians have met and continue to meet.
These challenges have been enormous. During its 150 years the Library has survived shipwreck, fires and destruction by water. I can only imagine the heartbreak librarians have suffered over the years.
Today we are joined by retired Chief Librarians Hillas MacLean and Ian Matheson and former acting Parliamentary Librarian Ruth MacEachern. It is thanks to your efforts and dedication and that of your colleagues that we have the Library we have today.
Over the years, my colleagues have acknowledged the work of the Library.
In 2000, my predecessor Jonathan Hunt described the Library as the “best of its type in the Commonwealth.”
In that same year MP Jill Pettis urged her colleagues to use the Library saying “it is free and the library staff are always very happy to be helpful.”
MP the Honourable Richard Prebble acknowledged this in 2003 when he referred to research he commissioned from the Library over the summer. He described it as a “very reliable and reputable source.”
To maintain this reputation, the Library has had to move with the times.
Our current Parliamentary Librarian, Moira Fraser, has overseen a rapid transformation in the last few years.
Thanks to Google we can all sit at our desks and undertake our own research. It is when we get stuck that we now turn to the expertise of the Parliamentary Library.
Under Moira’s leadership the Parliamentary Library has positioned itself for the 21st century and the demands and expectations of Members.
The Library is now an electronic powerhouse working in all fields of the media.
Housed in a splendid Gothic building it is a wonderful blend of past, present and future. Analysts and researchers undertake detailed searches through the world’s best data bases while surrounded by handsome leather-bound and gilt embossed books lined up on historic steel shelving.
The book launched today captures this history and sense of evolution.
Parliament’s
Library
– 150 years has been written by Parliamentary Historian Dr John E Martin. I congratulate you and the library staff on this publication.
This book conveys the struggles involved in advancing the library. For anyone with an interest in the history of our country, in Parliament and in books it cleverly draws you in with a rich mix of images and stories. But as we would expect of Dr Martin and our library, all this is supported by facts and fine detail.
The book is complemented by a pull-out timeline which captures the history of the Library in four visually appealing pages.
It is a fitting commemoration of the Library’s 150 years. And it leaves me wondering just how our Parliamentary Library will evolve in the future and what it will be providing Members in the decades ahead.
