A Collection of "National Significance"

An assessment of the importance of the LMI collection by Professor Wallace Kirsop

I was first introduced to the LMI collection by Phil Leonard in February 1973. At the time I marvelled at the fiction. I am glad that it has been properly recognized as an indispensable national resource. Since 1973 I have had a good deal to do with mechanics' institute libraries, not least through my role in Mechanics' Institutes of Victoria Inc.
 

1. The Launceston Mechanics' Institute collection, despite all its vicissitudes, is clearly the most substantial one to have survived in a regional centre from before 1850. Indeed Adelaide is the only other one of comparable longevity and it is, of course, metropolitan. Ballarat and to a lesser extent Bendigo offer collections of impressive scope begun in the second half of the nineteenth century. Consequently Launceston has claims to be unique, and its collection is vital in my view to the heritage of the whole country. After all we have lost the holdings of older institutes in Hobart, Sydney and Melbourne, not to mention Geelong. In short Launceston is a special case of national significance. 

2. If -- and it is an eventuality I view with dismay -- the non-fiction part of the Launceston collection is discarded, every item should be examined and recorded for evidence of provenance (London and colonial booksellers, earlier local collections -- public and private -- etc.). The work is of such potential importance that I am prepared to volunteer to help in it.

Wallace Kirsop: Adjunct Professor in the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University; Honorary Fellow, Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne; Editor of the Australian Journal of French Studies, 1968-2002; first President of the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand, 1969-1973; sometime Sandars Reader in Bibliography, University of Cambridge, 1980-1981.