Friends of the Launceston Mechanics' Institute awarded federal Community Heritage Grant

Friends of the Launceston Mechanics' Institute has been awarded a federal Community Heritage Grant to fund a significance assessment of its book collection.

The grant was announced at the National Library of Australia, Canberra, on Tuesday, 28 October, 2014.

This year, grants worth $386,577 have been distributed to 73 community groups and organisations from around Australia to assist in the identification and preservation of community owned but nationally significant heritage collections. In addition, Peter Richardson from FOLMI attended a three-day intensive preservation and collection management workshop held at the National Library, the National Archives of Australia, the National Museum of Australia and the National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra.

Mr Richardson said the grant was important in supporting the effort to preserve the Institute's book collection at the grassroots level. “While the grant provides the funds, the workshop offers the expertise to help us protect our collection and make it accessible while it remains in the local context,” he said.

Director-General of the National Library of Australia, Ms Anne-Marie Schwirtlich, said the CHG program showed the commitment by the National Library, along with its partner institutions and the Federal Government, in encouraging communities to care for the nation’s heritage, be it in small country towns or capital cities.

“It is all about working together to help spread the message that if we don’t preserve our history now, it could be lost forever,” she said. “Through sharing this knowledge, the information can be taken back to the communities where it is most needed to ensure that local heritage collections are still there for future generations.”

The grant money is used for significance assessments, preservation needs assessments, conservation treatments, preservation training, digitisation, and purchasing quality storage materials or environmental monitoring equipment.

The Community Heritage Grants Program is funded by the Australian Government through the National Library of Australia; Ministry for the Arts, Attorney-General’s Department; the National Archives of Australia; the National Film and Sound Archive; and the National Museum of Australia.

MEDIA RELEASE

Friends of the Launceston Mechanics' Institute

THURSDAY 28 NOVEMBER 2013

The members of Friends of the Launceston Mechanics' Institute Inc. (FOLMI) welcome the decision of Launceston City Council to transfer the former Launceston Mechanics' Institute collection to their custodianship and future management.

FOLMI was formed as a response to the threat of dispersal and possible disposal of a major portion of the LMI Collection. The organisation brings together individuals with the enthusiasm, interest and most importantly the expertise to organise, research and maintain this highly significant collection for the benefit of the Launceston community, local historians and the wider circle of researchers into Australian cultural history.

The aim of FOLMI is to ensure the LMI continues to be acknowledged as an important cultural institution in the history of Launceston; to preserve what remains of its holdings for their local and national significance; and to facilitate research into the collection in all its aspects. 

This is a remarkable and important collection, not only for the heritage of Launceston, but in a national context.

It is exceptionally rare to have such a large collection surviving from the Mechanics' Institute era.

These organisations were the precursors of the modern public library, of the technical and adult education movements, and in Launceston's case of the QV Museum and Art Gallery.

By the 1890s there were over 2000 Mechanics Institutes and Schools of Arts in Australia. Most Institute collections have been dispersed, sold off, discarded, or destroyed by fire and flood many years ago. Of the small number that have survived Launceston is the earliest and the largest – comparable only with Adelaide and Ballarat but older and more complete.

Equally important is the fact that the Launceston Collection has survived with its records largely intact – we still have the correspondence files, catalogues, accession books and accounts of the institute.

This means we have a unique resource for researchers – with an interest in library history, reading tastes, the history of ideas, nineteenth century writing, bookselling and publishing, and the social history of the city.

A long history of prudent management and wise decisions has led to the survival of this collection;

-              That the Launceston Mechanics' Institute Committee took such care to build and maintain its excellent library collection on behalf of the community between 1842 and 1929.

-              That the Launceston Public Library committee kept the collection in its safe keeping for over 20 years, as did the Launceston City Council when it took over operation of the Launceston Public Library.

-              That the Aldermen of the day had the foresight to retain ownership of the collection when it was transferred to the Tasmanian Library Board's custodianship in 1971,

-              And that the Library has kept the collection in storage from that date until now.

In 2013 the FOLMI solution would seem to be the only way the collection can be kept intact from this time forward, given that it does not fit the collecting priorities of either QVMAG or LINC Tasmania. That is the reason FOLMI  was formed - to save the collection from going the way of so many other similar collections.

Who are we?

FOLMI is an incorporated not-for-profit community group which held its inaugural meeting on 18 October 2013.

Our Objects and Purposes

The aim of the Friends of the Launceston Mechanics’ Institute Inc. is to establish and maintain a working research Launceston Mechanics’ Institute Collection by;

i) locating, selecting, organising, cataloguing and preserving existing materials once the property of the Launceston Mechanics’ Institute between 1842 and 1929;

ii) liaising with local, state and national government agencies and with relevant interest groups to promote the significance of the LMI Collection;

iii) establishing a permanent home for the LMI Collection, in particular those parts not integrated with local and state government agencies;

iv) providing broad public access to the catalogue of the LMI Collection and enabling direct access to researchers needing to use the Collection;

Current Membership

Office-bearers  President: Peter Richardson

Secretary: Mike McCausland

Treasurer: Richard Pickup

Public Officer: Prue McCausland

Committee         Peter Richardson, Mike McCausland, Richard Pickup, Prue McCausland, Sue McClarron (Vice-President), John Dent.

Members            The organisation currently has 34 members.

Our Project

The proposed transfer of Launceston Mechanics' Institute books to FOLMI involves between 20,000 and 25,000 books and other publications, of which 12,000 are non-fiction, 8,000 are fiction, and the remainder are periodicals.

There are other surviving books in the Collection which are still in use at Launceston LINC. It is proposed that these be retained in that location until they are no longer required, and then transferred to FOLMI.

The books and periodicals transferred to FOLMI will initially be held at the Newnham Campus of the University of Tasmania which has made a suitable space available for storage, assessment and evaluation of the collection.

FOLMI intends in the long term to establish the Collection as a research base, and for this purpose external sources of funding will eventually be required. It is envisaged that funds will be supplied through private donations, joint ventures with partners, and through cultural sector grants.

 

Peter Richardson

President, Friends of the Launceston Mechanics' Institute Inc.

Northern library collections agreement reached

Media Release from Launceston City Council. 
Monday 25 November 2013

Launceston Alderman have today voted to enter into an agreement with LINC Tasmania on the future of two collections currently held at the Launceston LINC.

The Launceston Mechanics' Institute (est. 1842) and the Meston collections are owned by the Launceston City Council and, by an agreement signed in March 1971, have since been managed by the State Library (now part of LINC Tasmania).

The collections, particularly the Meston Collection, hold many valuable 19th century Australian and Tasmanian publications. The Mechanics' Institute Collection is a window into the reading tastes of Launcestonians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. It is one of the few such Australian collections relatively intact and still in existence today.

In 2014, the Launceston LINC building on Civic Square will undergo greatly anticipated renovations, as announced by the Minister for Education and Skills in February 2013.

Preparation for this project has prompted a need to resolve some long outstanding issues of collection ownership, and develop long-term plans for items held in storage for many years.

The Council and LINC Tasmania engaged with a newly formed community group, the Friends of the Launceston Mechanics' Institute (FOLMI), to find a suitable arrangement for the large number of items that do not fit the collecting priorities of either QVMAG or LINC Tasmania

Launceston Mayor Albert van Zetten said all three parties had been aware of a need to do their utmost to care for the heritage of Launceston, while at the same time balancing issues of responsible stewardship with progress and development.

Aldermen today approved a recommendation that LINC Tasmania be granted ownership of the Meston Collection as well as items from the Mechanics' Institute Collection which has already been included in the Launceston Local Studies and Reference collections.

Jenny Rayner, Director of LINC Tasmania, said: “These items form the basis of our local heritage collections and we are delighted to formally accept responsibility for their ongoing care and management. They will be securely held in Launceston for consultation by Tasmanians and visitors from all over the world, and for the benefit of future generations.”

It is also recommended that the remaining volumes in storage be transferred to the newly incorporated Friends of the Launceston Mechanics' Institute. FOLMI will be responsible for the large general non-fiction and fiction collections and periodicals. They plan to make these items available to researchers and the general public once they have completed the necessary sorting and organising of the materials.

LINC Tasmania will grant custody of the official records of the Mechanics' Institute to the Council's QVMAG. The Museum will also be given an assortment of the Institute's objects. Books presently held by LINC Tasmania which were originally part of the Evandale Subscription Library (est. 1847) will also be transferred to the QVMAG Museum where they will complement an existing collection.

Speaking for their respective organisations, the Directors of LINC Tasmania and QVMAG expressed their satisfaction at the outcome of six months of negotiations.

QVMAG Director Richard Mulvaney said: "This is a sustainable outcome that will preserve Launceston's heritage well into the future. On behalf of all parties involved I wish to thank everyone for their input and advice, and for the amicable spirit in which the negotiations were conducted."

It is expected that items will be transferred to their new locations early in 2014.

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.

The Future of the LMI Legacy Collection

A brief statement concerning the future of the LMI Legacy Collection

1. In terms of significance of the LMI holdings in comparison with other remaining Mechanics' Institute collections in Australia, it appears that the LMI holdings are one of only two such highly valued large collections, the other being the Adelaide Circulating Library Collection housed in the South Australian State Library. But the largely intact Launceston MI Library Collection is dated from the 1840's when the other significant Mechanics' Institute Library Collections remaining in Australia date, at least from the 1850's. Surely this renders the Launceston Collection as highly significant?

This typical Mechanics' Institute Library Collection is very special indeed in a national context as  the earliest  entire and complex literary remnant of the influential Mechanics' Institute Libraries Movement , which flourished all over Australia. Collections such as these form the basis upon which our present public library  and technical education systems were based and are an essential narrative to the understanding of our cultural, educational, literary and early European settlement in Australia.

2. I feel strongly that parts of this collection not be sold, that the collection be catalogued and assessed and that ultimately the collection be retained in total as a discrete collection. It is of utmost importance that it remains and is cared for as an invaluable unique and important Tasmanian as well as Australian cultural heritage.

Pam Baragwanath.

Author: If the Walls Could Speak: a social history of the Mechanics' Institutes of Victoria, 2000. (Currently being revised for publication in 2014.)

Present and Future

Ownership, custodianship, storage and access: integration vs. disposal

The legal position of ownership of what is referred to here as the LMI Legacy Collection is set out in the July 1944 agreement between the Launceston Public Library Board and Launceston City Corporation, the present owners (now known as the Launceston City Council). Responsibility for management of the materials, as covered under the Libraries Bill of 1943, was passed to the State Library Board.  This state of affairs was affirmed in the 1971 Regional Library Agreement between Launceston City Council and the State Library of Tasmania. In this agreement the Meston Collection and the LMI Collection were excluded from the general transfer of assets from the LCC to the State Library Board. These arrangements were reaffirmed in a working party report under the chairmanship of Sir George Cartland in 1979 and in correspondence between the LCC’s Corporate Services Manager and Minister of Education Peter Rae in November 1987.   

The custodianship of the collection once held by the Launceston Public Library Board, the body that inherited LMI material, has been with the State Library since 1945. As the body responsible for providing public library services in Launceston it has managed its working collection professionally, which has meant adding to stock, moving items from one part of its collection to another, weeding by disposing of damaged stock or placing out-of-date items still needing retention in stack, maintaining an up-to-date catalogue for items in use etc.  All these have had an impact on the LMI Legacy Collection, and their integration into or exclusion from the larger operation of the State Library has been a necessary part of that management.  However it has led to the issues of ownership and custodianship being overlaid and in one sense now inextricable.  It would appear that only the clear ownership by LCC of the LMI Legacy Collection has saved parts of it from disposal since 1945.

Storage of the large number of books and serials, much of it acquired in the heyday of the Institute in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, has been a problem for the State Library, and since the transfer of the nonfiction lending collection back from the Moonah store, for Launceston Library/LINC. Pressure for space in the building that is about to be renovated has rendered this problem a pressing one. However it would be most unfortunate if that alone was a driving force in the disposal of items whose significance to local historians is undisputed, and whose significance nationally is unknown because they are uncatalogued.

Under the present arrangements for the LMI Legacy Collection, some parts are accessible, in constant use and are highly valued.  These have emerged as important at every stage of the professional operation of the libraries holding them. The parts in stack have been set aside at various stages as not fitting the immediate needs of a working collection. Some of these have subsequently been realised to be of national importance, most probably because other working libraries have disposed of similar items long ago.  Until the rest are accessible and catalogued, the remainder’s national and local value cannot be assessed.

The key to a locally-sensitive evaluation of the LMI Legacy Collection is considering it as a whole. From 1842 the LMI became the main resource for the cultural life of the town as a regional centre and later as an emerging city.  The records and relics of that time which still exist give the fullest picture we can form at this remove of that life.  Although degraded by use and long-term storage, these books and periodicals give insights of a very specific kind into what was available to residents in a part of colonial Australia, how they were acquired, how they were received, and how fashions in reading changed. From this perspective, amount of wear, card pockets, date stamps and other associations with their library origins are part of the significance of each item. For book collectors, of course, they reduce their value markedly, and it was from this perspective that the lending nonfiction has recently been assessed.

Until the parts of the collection in boxes are taken out and reviewed in terms of their contribution to the whole, there should not be any disposal of items. There are several audiences for the information generated by cataloguing those that are retained and by access to the books and serials themselves, including Northern Tasmanian local historians and researchers in the fields of the sociology of education, reading and the community and the history of ideas. Reflecting these diverse ways of viewing the LMI Collection, there are three agencies represented in Launceston which could provide for its professional management and guardianship: LINC Tasmania, the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, and the University of Tasmania.

If researchers and other professionals from the national, state and local networks associated with these agencies can act in partnership, it will assist greatly in maintaining the Launceston community’s cultural heritage. Support from the management of the agencies and from the Launceston community itself will be vital to achieve this collaboration. Assuming the legacy collection is retained in Launceston, that is, the parts are kept in reasonably close physical proximity, and with openness of access for these diverse professional and community groups, suitable responsibility for the parts of the materials could be:

Launceston LINC/TAHO/Local Studies Collection – The Meston Collection, photographs, newspapers and government publications;

QVMAG – The records and objects;

University of Tasmania – The periodicals, adult nonfiction and literature (including popular fiction and children’s literature).

It would take time, commitment and leadership to enable a working relationship of this kind to be established, and it is important that the process is consultative and mutually fruitful at management and research levels.  It is vital that the collection not be further dispersed, and certainly parts of it not disposed of, until the necessary time is given to consultation.