NOTES AND COMMENTS

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 7, Issue 2, 1 October 1974, Page 39

NOTES AND COMMENTS

Archive of New Zealand Music The Library has in the past as part of its policy of building a comprehensive collection of printed material relating to New Zealand bought a range of printed music. At present all printed music covered by the New Zealand Copyright Act is being deposited in the Library and this is being supplemented by the purchase of phonograph records of works by New Zealand composers and performances by New Zealand musicians. A little manuscript music has been added from time to time together with letters and diaries of musical personalities.

Early this year a major stimulus to the Library’s music collecting policies was given by the Composers Association of New Zealand. Three members of the executive, Professor Douglas Lilburn, Mr David Farquhar and Mrs Dorothy Freed, called on the Chief Librarian to discuss the possibility of Turnbull becoming a repository for unpublished music by New Zealand composers. After lengthy discussions the Library decided to adopt a wider view and to create an ‘Archive of New Zealand Music’ to include the whole range of musical research materials including published and unpublished scores, phonograph records and tapes, programmes, photographs, the letters and diaries of musical personalities, and the archives of musical societies and organisations, and to accelerate its collecting in this area. Circular letters were sent to a wide range of composers outlining the nature of the proposed archive and asking for a ‘statement of intent to deposit’. The response has been very good and already 1 two major collections of scores have arrived in the Library. Further publicity is being given to the archive and in the near future a direct approach will be made to performers and to a range of musical societies.

The Library at present lacks equipment and facilities for playing records and tapes but is considering the provision of a limited range of facilities. Plans have been made for a fully equipped audio room in the new National Library building with the full range of equipment for playing and recording music tapes. In a new departure for the Library the Chief Librarian has invited a number of people prominent in the musical world to act as consultants to the Library to advise on the building and administration of the Archive of New Zealand Music.

International Cook Exhibition in Oregon to Mark the Bicentenary of the American Revolution In 1976 each state of the United States will celebrate the Declaration of Independence. Cook sailed on his third voyage a week after the

Declaration was signed and Cape Foulweather on the Oregon coast was his first landfall in the American North-West, hence the State of Oregon is making the third voyage bicentenary the subject of its revolutionary bicentenary. It was agreed that an international Cook Exhibition should be mounted by the century-old Oregon Historical Society, an influential private body that maintains its own very fine modern museum and library in Portland. The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, was approached for exhibits but the museum already planned its own exhibition in 1976. Consequently Oregon advanced its celebration to 1974, in order to obtain much material from Greenwich. The exhibition runs for six months from July and is the largest Cook exhibition ever presented, with a score of countries participating.

Since the Turnbull has the strongest Cook collection in this country, when Oregon made an official approach to New Zealand for a large number of items the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked for the Library’s assistance. On behalf of the Ministry, the Library acted as its agent in assembling and packing exhibits, and Mr A. A. St C. M. Murray-Oliver was appointed New Zealand Co-ordinator for the exhibition. The Society’s associate director, and later the chairman of the exhibition committee, both visited New Zealand to choose items from the Auckland City Art Gallery, the Auckland Public Library, the National Museum, Government House, the Bishop Suter Art Gallery in Nelson, the Hocken Library, Dunedin, and of course the Alexander Turnbull Library, which provided the greatest bulk of manuscripts, pictures and books associated with Cook. Two private collectors also contributed.

From the Turnbull collection were chosen Cook’s Eagle Log 1755-56; the Hicks Endeavour Journal; the transcript of Banks’s Journal made for Constantine Phipps; the second and third voyage journals of Bayly, the astronomer; and many other less spectacular manuscripts. A fairly large selection of rare published volumes was accompanied by the recently acquired crayon portrait of a New Hebrides native by Hodges, backed by nearly a hundred rare and varied prints. The six paintings from other institutions, with the Resolution figurehead from the National Museum, were briefly on display at the Library before shipment.

The Oregon Historical Society asked that Mr Murray-Oliver should visit Portland for a fortnight to compile the exhibition catalogue, intended to be a definitive reference work. Entitled Captain Cook, R. N., the resolute mariner: an international record of oceanic discovery, the 97 page catalogue is lavishly illustrated. Cabinet approval was given for this visit and a substantial sum provided for all costs within New Zealand together with Mr Murray-Oliver’s air fare. The Society generously made him their guest while he was in Portland. Travelling via Honolulu and Papeete, and visiting the Huntington Library as well, he made useful discoveries as well as gaining much new knowledge from

working with the catalogue. Although he was able to supervise the unpacking of the New Zealand exhibits, unfortunately none of those from other countries arrived while he was in Portland during April-May, and he had to work from lists only. It was particularly regrettable that the twenty items sent by Russia were not available for inspection. From the outset the Society had stressed the importance they placed on the exhibits asked for from this country and our contribution was in fact superior in both size and quality to any other, not excluding even that from Greenwich. For this reason, as well as because New Zealand’s was the first to arrive, with a representative in Portland, both New Zealand and the Alexander Turnbull Library reaped a great deal of publicity in extensive television, radio and press coverage, establishing a most favourable image in the Pacific North-West. Reports received by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicate that the exhibition has been most successful and that in Portland there is warm appreciation of New Zealand’s participation and the considerable assistance provided by the Turnbull Library.

Cook Celebrations in the Pacific To commemorate the 1774 Cook discoveries and exploration in the New Hebrides the British High Commission requested the assistance of the New Zealand Government in staging a Cook exhibition at the Cultural Centre in Vila, New Hebrides. The Library assembled a display of photographic enlargements of pictorial and textual material from its very extensive collections of Cook, on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The local climatic conditions in the New Hebrides unfortunately precluded the exhibition of any of the original materials in the Library.

New Zealand National Bibliography to 1960 In amplification and up-dating of a reference to the New Zealand National Bibliography in the Annual Report of the Chief Librarian it may be mentioned that the Editor of this journal, in another guise, is under contract with the State Services Commission to complete the retrospective volumes of the Bibliography, two of which have been published. The working records, as far as they have been completed are in the Library in safe storage in a fire-proof cabinet known to users, from the name of its maker, as ‘Chubb’. It had been hoped that Volume 4 which completes the 1890-1960 section would have been published this year. However, unexpected problems in the supply of paper have compounded other delays arising from the editor’s post-retirement preoccupations and the best that can be expected is that the volume will be in the hands of users before too much of 1975 has elapsed.

The Editor can continue this still considerable task only with the sustained assistance of staff in the Catalogue Section of the Library. In addition to a vigilant general oversight on Volume 4 by Miss K. S. Williams much of the routine final checking and proof reading has been undertaken by Mr V. G. Elliott. Within the last few months work on Volume 1, the section to 1889, has been actively resumed, from which point Miss Williams acts as Assistant Editor. At this stage no date can safely be set when the four thousand or so entries which will be included can be said to be ready for printing. If the entire project including Volume 5, the Index volume and Supplement, were to be out before the end of the decade the survivors from the task would doubtless be most gratified. The transcription of over 3,000 titles has been completed but if the Turnbull has the country’s most extensive New Zealand collection it is far from having everything. Checking which has already been undertaken in Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, Sydney, Canberra and London will need to be continued to pick up the last few hundred outliers. While many of these are works which contain only a section dealing with aspects of New Zealand life many are complete pamphlets or books of some research significance.

Postcards and Greetings Card, 1974 As previously advised in advance, the Friends are publishing two Postcards in colour of Heaphy’s 1841 views of Thomdon and Te Aro. These are now available from the Library at 20 cents each. There is also a black and white greetings card from a pencil sketch by William Swainson, of the Taita Gorge, selling at 15 cents. All three cards measure approximately 6x4 inches. An envelope is supplied with each.