Posted 19/09/2023 by Alexandra Herden
On 17 September 2023, Dr Dianne Heriot’s term as Parliamentary Librarian ended after more than 11 years in office. The role of Parliamentary Librarian has existed since 1901, with Mr Steven Fox newly appointed as the 11th person to hold this title. Most recently Assistant Director-General for Collection Management at the National Archives of Australia, Mr Fox brings with him more than 30 years of experience working in a variety of cultural heritage institutions. In acknowledging this transition, this Flagpost reflects on the origins of the Parliamentary Librarian and the making of the modern Parliamentary Library.
Novel Beginnings: The First Parliamentary Librarian
The inaugural Parliamentary Librarian Arthur Wadsworth remains the longest serving, with a tenure spanning more than 26 years. His father Robert had also been a longstanding public servant, as Clerk of the Victorian Government’s Executive Council from 1875 to 1889. Though only 36 years of age when appointed, Wadsworth already had two decades of experience within the Victorian Parliamentary Library, rising to assistant librarian under Richard Church. This career trajectory was no doubt aided by his reportedly ‘encyclopaedic knowledge and a card-index memory’, causing him to be ‘much in demand by politicians in search of information or quotations with which to embellish their speeches’. Wadsworth was also credited as a leading Shakespearean scholar with interest in astronomy, physics and music.
As the Commonwealth Parliament initially sat in Victoria’s Parliament House until 1927, it essentially took over the Victorian Parliament’s Library, including Wadsworth and other staff. For more than a quarter century Wadsworth was technically on loan from the Victorian Public Service and was only transferred to the Commonwealth service on 1 January 1927. As Parliamentary Librarian he ensured that the Commonwealth Library had a robust collection of publications and historic newspaper files, which parliamentarians constantly sought out – especially to inform chamber debates. Additionally, he published the first five issues of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Handbook — a tradition dutifully continued in the Parliamentary Handbook Online.
Turning the page: The Library moves to Canberra
In 1927 the Parliamentary Library relocated from Melbourne to Canberra alongside the federal parliament. Assistant librarian Kenneth Binns was charged with the removal, which proved an arduous process as transporting the collection by rail was deemed too hazardous. Eventually the ‘gigantic undertaking’ was completed with the Defence department providing four covered ‘motor-waggons’ for the transport task.
This was not the only issue with moving the library’s 80,000 volumes to Canberra (less than half the Parliamentary Library’s current physical holdings). Back in 1923 during their evidence to the Parliament’s Public Works Committee, Wadsworth and Binns argued that the library accommodation within the proposed new Parliament House would be exhausted in less than nine years if the current acquisition rate of 3,000 new volumes was maintained (compared to 9,000 volumes in 2022-23). Despite these concerns, the new Library was completed by April 1927, and Wadsworth retired soon after.
Building the narrative: The making of the modern Parliamentary Library
Like parliament itself, the Parliamentary Library has changed significantly since 1901. No less than Prime Minister Edmund Barton took a keen interest in its development, writing to the Speaker (and Chair of the Library Committee) Frederick Holder:
It is again a question entirely of policy whether the future Library is to be purely Parliamentary or whether it will include all the requirements of a National Library, as is the case in Washington. These are questions which stand at the very threshold of the creation of a Parliamentary Library, and which must inevitably be determined by Parliament before that work begins.
With the latter combined model eventually selected, the library became known as the Commonwealth National Library in 1923. This continued until 1960 when the National Library of Australia was established, despite Parliamentary Librarian Harold White’s objections.
A further defining moment occurred in 1966 when (then Sir) Harold White created the ‘Legislative Research and References Services’ sections of the Parliamentary Library, reportedly modelled on the United States’ Congressional Library. From its humble beginnings of six research positions, the Parliamentary Library now employs 89 research branch staff, providing 7,227 information briefs in 2021-22. The Parliamentary Library has also published 7,780 reports of legislative analysis (‘Bills Digests’) since October 1976.
As custodians of the Parliamentary Library, current and former Parliamentary Librarians have steered the institution through periods of change to provide independent and impartial advice to parliamentarians. In an information environment defined by excessive misinformation and ‘info-glut’, these services are more crucial to Australia’s democracy than ever.