Immigration Department Library Saved

Abstract

In July 2003 the long-serving Librarian of the Department of Immigration returned from leave to find 70% of her treasured library – the most valuable collection of material relating to the history of immigration, migrant settlement and multiculturalism in Australia – had been culled. All material published before 1995 had been removed regardless of its historical significance. The Department proposed to send the collection to Lifeline. Presumably what it could not sell would end up at the dump. She managed to persuade the Department to offer the collection to libraries or museums in Sydney, Melbourne or Adelaide: a solution which would save some of it, but destroy its integrity as a collection. I was very familiar with this collection. Like many of my fellow officers I frequently consulted it in the course of preparing Departmental briefs and papers. It was also invaluable as a supplement to the Departmental archives I had used in preparing my books, Alien to Citizen and Redefining Australians, on the development of the Department’s settlement policies from 1945–75. Its photographic collection, which dated from the days of the Department of Information and from which I drew most of the books’ illustrations, is now preserved in the National Archives of Australia. In my capacity as a member of the Australian Historical Association’s Libraries and Archives Users Committee, I appealed to the Chief Minister of the ACT, Jon Stanhope, asking him to retain this important national collection intact and in the national capital, arguing that it would be a valuable component of his proposed Multicultural Centre. My letter was endorsed and enthusiastically promoted by the then President of the AHA, David Carment. It was also supported by representatives of the Migrant Resource Centre of Canberra and Queanbeyan, the ACT Multicultural Council and Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Council of Australia, a number of Australian Vice Chancellors and Deans of relevant faculties, the former Minister for Immigration, Al Grassby, the Canberra and District Historical Society, Manning Clark House, the Australian Institute of Jesuit Studies, the Refugee Council of Australia, the Independent Scholars Association, the Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office and Racial Respect, as well as Charles Price, James Jupp and Jerzy Zubrycki: scholars who have made immigration their life’s work. I am delighted to be able to announce that the ACT government agreed to accept the collection, and it has already been installed on the shelves of the new Theo Notaris Multicultural Centre awaiting cataloguing. It is a research facility with internet access, not a library. It is open to researchers at any time during working hours, and in a few months it will be accessible through the on-line catalogue of the ACT Library Service whose City library will be soon co-located with it. The Multicultural Centre is located on Level 2 of the North Building, 180 London Circuit, above the Canberra Museum and Gallery. For more information consult the Centre’s Manager, George Simpson: phone 02 6205 3297, or email george.simpson@act.gov.au.