History Commons^™

'Not Yet Ready': Australian University Libraries And Carnegie Corporation Philanthropy, 1935-1945, Michael J. Birkner

History Faculty Publications

In recent years the Carnegie Corporation's influence on Australian library development has been fruitfully examined from many angles, among them its role in promoting free-library movements in the various states. One piece of the story, however, remains mostly in the shadows: the Corporation's initiatives pointing towards modernizing and professionalizing Australian university libraries. Although the Corporation's philanthropic enterprise at the university level yielded mixed results at best, it was not inconsequential. It provided a blueprint for future university-library development in Australia. In one instance, at the University of Melbourne, it inspired a vice-chancellor to articulate a vision of a library future …

'A Little Bit Of Love For Me And A Murder For My Old Man': The Queensland Bush Book Club, Robin Wagner

All Musselman Library Staff Works

This paper addresses rural book distribution in an era before free public libraries came to Australia. Well-to-do, city women established clubs, which solicited donations of “proper reading matter” and raised funds for the purchase of books for their “deprived sisters” in the Outback. They took advantage of a well-developed rail system to deliver book parcels to rural families. In New South Wales and Queensland they were known as Bush Book Clubs.

Testimonials found in the Clubs’ annual reports provide a snapshot of the hard scrabble frontier life and the gratitude with which these parcels were received. This paper looks at …