Significance Assessment Report

With the generous support of the National Library's Community Heritage Grant Scheme, we commissioned a Significance Assessment of our collection in December 2014. The assessment was carried out by eminent South Australian historian, Dr Susan Marsden. Dr Marsden's report has been received by Friends of the Launceston Mechanics' Institute and her all-important 'Statement of Significance' is reproduced in full below.

Anyone wishing to download the complete report and appendices may do so using the following links which also appear under LINKS in the sidebar.

Significance Assessment of the Launceston Mechanics' Institute Collection (2.85mb)

Appendices (1.72mb)

Statement of Significance

The Launceston Mechanics Institute collection is a historically significant collection of high value. The collection is primarily of historical significance as a rich and now rare set of books and periodicals dating mainly from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that comprised the larger part of the library of a major mechanics institute in an important regional city in Australia, and illustrating the reading habits, information sources and connections of a colonial and non-metropolitan city, and its international and British empire connections. This largely intact and extensive Institute collection also retains (as a separate collection, at QVMAG) most of the associated Institute records. There appears to be only one comparable (but smaller) collection in Australia, that of the Ballaarat Mechanics Institute.

While the Collection in its entirety is of most significance it has many significant individual items, including a first edition of Middlemarch, books inscribed to and donated by founding settlers (as described in detail in Part 2), and many other individual books and sets of periodicals that are ‘collectables’ of some value.

Mechanics Institutes played a vital role in Australia’s cultural development, particularly in regional towns and cities. One of the most important of them was the Launceston Mechanics Institute. In operation from 1842 until 1929, and as an institute membership-owned library until 1945, this was one of the earliest mechanics’ institutes, ultimately one of the largest, and with the retention of a substantial part of its literature and archival collections, one of the most enduring institute libraries in Australian history. Munn and Binns, two of the most influential figures in the history of Australian libraries both highly rated the LMI library as the best of any library outside the capital cities, and as probably the best surviving institute library in Australia. 

From the accession registers around 46,000 items were acquired between 1842 and 1945. Some 20,000 books and 2,000 periodicals survive from this library, together with the Institute’s records and some furniture and other objects. The two most closely comparable Institute collections in Australia are those of the Adelaide Circulating Library (at the SSL) and the Ballaarat Mechanics Institute collection (Victoria), but the LMI collection is of earlier provenance than both, is more representative of an institute library than Adelaide’s, and is larger than the Ballaarat collection.

This significance assessment has confirmed that the size, quality, scope age and provenance of the LMI collection places its importance equal to or above any similar collection in Australia, and hence its national significance. The LMI Collection is not only the most substantial and comprehensive Institute library to have survived in an Australian regional centre from before 1850, but appears to be the most substantial and comprehensive library collection to have survived from the entire period of the flourishing of mechanics institutes in Australia, between the 1840s and the 1940s.

In their CHG application, FOLMI quoted specialists in this field, Adjunct Professor Wallace Kirsop and Pam Baragwanath. Kirsop stated:

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.

Pam Baragwanath made a similar observation (see also 1.2.2).  This SA not only confirms those specialist opinions, but adds to the unique status of the LMI collection. 

This is also the last intact collection of books from the major cultural institution in Launceston’s history. The significance of this Collection is increased by having institute stickers and rules still attached and by the preservation in Launceston (at QVMAG) of related administrative records, and catalogues, as well as histories. The Institute’s history is well-documented in newspapers and in unpublished and published accounts, most substantially in Whitfeld, History of the Launceston Mechanics' Institute and Public Library (1912), and Petrow, Going to the Mechanics (1998). Many of these works also provide important contextual information. The Launceston Mechanics Institute – and hence, the LMI collection - was significant not only because of its early date, longevity and scale, but because the associated records of the LMI have survived, and that rich documentation is supported by several published histories, as well as unpublished research and news reports.

President's Report - November 2014

Friends of the Launceston Mechanics' Institute

President's Report 11 November 2014

1.      Report on the CHG award and workshop on significance assessment

Firstly, my thanks to the FOLMI executive for allowing me to attend on behalf of the group, and for the opportunity to participate in the workshops.

The Community Heritage Grants program (CHG) is an initiative of the National Library of Australia. The Community Heritage Grants (CHG) program provides grants of up to $15,000 to community organisations such as libraries, archives, museums, genealogical and historical societies, multicultural and Indigenous groups. The grants are provided to assist with the preservation of locally owned, but nationally significant collections of materials that are publicly accessible including artefacts, letters, diaries, maps, photographs, and audio visual material. In 2014, 73 grants were awarded, totalling $386,577.

The most important thing I learnt was that the CHG program can operate in progressive stages. You must start with a grant to carry out a Significance Assessment. Then you can move on to a Preservation Needs Assessment, then progress to further grants for conservation activities, collection management and training. The thing I'm going to concentrate on today is Significance Assessment. Most of the groups attending were at this stage, and a lot of the workshop activity was around getting a better handle on what was meant by Significance Assessment.

Perhaps the best way to approach SA is that it is to museums and movable heritage what the Burra Charter is to built heritage.

It is above all a way of determining where a collection fits in the National Heritage Collection.

Significance defines the meanings and values of a cultural heritage item or collection through research and analysis, and by assessment against a standard set of criteria.

These criteria are central to establishing the status of your collection.

There are four Primary Criteria or Values – Historic, Aesthetic, Social and Research - and three comparative criteria; Provenance, Rarity/Representativeness, Condition and Interpretive Potential.

These are the key areas investigated by a qualified assessor who provides a report and a statement of significance.

The important thing is that a collection only needs to be found to be of national significance in ONE each of the primary and the comparative criteria.

So in our case we would be looking at Historic, Social and Research Values of our collection – and its rarity as a surviving MI collection as well as its representativeness as library collection of a type that was important to the development of the country – comparing it to the very few similar collections that have survived.  But we would also have claims to outstanding provenance and untapped potential for research and interpretation. The one thing we lack is the building that housed the collection.

We have been very fortunate to have engaged Dr Susan Marsden an eminent historian from South Australia to carry out our assessment.

Susan is an associate member of Significance International, and also President of the History Council of South Australia and an appointed member of the State Records Council (SA) and of the Register Committee of the SA Heritage Council. Past employment includes seven years as South Australian State Historian, Visiting Fellow in the Urban Research Program at the Australian National University, and National Conservation Manager at the Australian Council of National Trusts.

As the key element of her assessment Susan will be here for a site visit from Sunday December 7 until Thursday the 11th. Hopefully we can arrange an opportunity for members and supporters to meet her during her visit.

Finally, I wanted to briefly outline our timeframe for completing the SA and moving to the next phase.

Because of the uncertainty around our tenure at UTAS, we are anxious to keep moving quickly. There is an opportunity to complete the SA by April, the earliest possible date for submission and so be able to apply for further funding in the 2015 round which closes on May 4 2015. If we waited until the final report deadline in November, we would not be able to apply for more funding until 2016. The next step would be for us to have a Preservation Needs Assessment done which would focus on the state of the collection and the urgent need for suitable storage, care and access. Also, if the SA demonstrates that the collection is of national significance we will be much better placed to pursue further funding from other sources, so it becomes a crucial document for our future.

2.      Report on progress in work on the LMI Collection

These are some of the volunteer projects  that have been undertaken  since our last meeting;

•       The delivery of the LMI collection to us from LINC Tasmania has been completed with the transfer of the Popular Fiction Collection. I should qualify this by saying that further items continue to arrive as the LINC staff finalise their reorganisation of the Launceston library building, and in the last few weeks more books, maps and catalogues have arrived.

•       We have conducted a detailed survey of a large sample of the non-fiction collection comparing it with holdings in other collections;

LMI Non-fiction Sample (n=367)

TROVE Listed

1.      Libraries listed on Trove held 276 titles in the same edition as that held by LMI (75.2%). Of these 53 (14.4% of the sample) were held by only one other library.

2.      Libraries listed on Trove held a further 47 titles but only in a different edition to that held by LMI. (12.8%)

3.      Libraries listed on Trove offered access to a further 39 titles in digital format but did not hold the printed book. i.e. only LMI held a print copy of these titles. (10.6%)

4.      LMI held copies of a further 5 titles that were not listed on Trove in either print or microform editions and for which no digital access was available. (1.4%)

Ballarat MI

Of the 367 titles in our sample, 86 were found on the Ballarat NF database (23.4%).

However of these 31 were the same title but in a different edition, so there were only 55 exact matches (14.9%).

•       Sue McClarron has completed a detailed descriptive survey of all known printed catalogues of the Institute which has provided valuable insights to the way the collection was organised and reorganised as it grew through the nineteenth century.

•       We have a complete set of digital photographs of all known surviving Accession Registers, from 1881 to 1945.

•       We have identified and recorded all LMI books still held in the Launceston Local Studies collections.

•       We have instigated several projects to highlight items of special interest in the collection – including surveys of our holdings of Dr Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia (over 100 items), books by and about lady travellers and explorers (something Anna Lynde one of our volunteers has been working on for the last two months), the survival rate of books in the 1906 Polynesian collection, collected and published galleries of bookplates, binders tickets, invitation and membership tickets on a Flickr website, we have recorded the collection's holdings of Nineteenth Century first edition novels in two- and three- volumes (known as the Three-Decker Collection).

•       In partnership with Andrew Parsons the librarian at QVMAG, we have identified and transferred books from other institutes and old public libraries such as Evandale, Deloraine, and local circulation and church libraries, to the QVMAG collection.

Peter Richardson

President

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.

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.)

Significance of the Legacy Collection

Significance of the LMI Legacy Collection

Locally

In terms of its significance to local historians, the Launceston Mechanics’ Institute was clearly of central importance to the Northern Tasmanian community, and those parts of the legacy collection now professionally maintained as part of larger working collections by LINC Tasmania, Launceston LINC and QVMAG are widely recognised and used as a valuable resource.  As much of the collection, however, is not generally accessible its significance is largely unknown. The recent valuation placed upon one part, the nonfiction lending collection, by Mitchell Librarian Alan Ventress was a consideration primarily of its commercial value, not the potential it has for local historians if it is integrated within the whole LMI legacy collection. 

Nationally

It has been pointed out earlier that Munn and Pitt in their Australia-wide survey in 1934 thought the only comparable mechanics’ institute collection was in Ballarat, and that Launceston’s MI was strongest in nonfiction and reference.  It was the national uniqueness of the popular fiction component, however, that caught the attention of Stephen Murray-Smith; once it was catalogued that opinion was more generally endorsed. It is now possible for researchers to access titles held nowhere else in Australian public collections. In a recent assessment of the collection Alan Ventress excepted the popular fiction from his disparagement of materials in stack on the basis that it was catalogued and known more widely.

Preliminary comparisons of the LMI’s legacy with other rural centre’s collections suggest that it is indeed highly significant nationally.  It would need those familiar with other collections to review the Launceston materials to pursue the question.