Library and Information Science Commons^™

'A Blood-Stained Corpse In The Butler's Pantry’: The Queensland Bush Book Club, Robin Wagner

All Musselman Library Staff Works

Lending libraries were not the norm in 1934 when the Carnegie Corporation of New York sent American librarian, Ralph Munn, to conduct a study of the condition of Australian libraries. In his initial survey Munn learned of the Queensland Bush Book Club, an organization of well-to-do, philanthropic women from Brisbane who had established a book lending service for settlers in the Outback. They hoped to ease the drudgery and lighten the burden faced by isolated women and their families in the rural areas. The antidote was a regular parcel of “proper” reading matter which included books, newspapers and magazines. They …