Research Notes

Turnbull Library Record, Volume XXII, Issue 1, 1 May 1989, Page 58

Research Notes

The Turnbull is planning to publish, in association with the Polynesian Society, the text of Songs 301-393 of Sir Apirana Ngata’s Nga Moteatea. The first three parts, up to song 300, were published between 1928 and 1972, and have latterly been issued by the Polynesian Society. Sir Apirana Ngata planned four parts and prepared typescripts and notes for all four. The fourth part has only recently been identified by Turnbull staff among the papers of the Maori Purposes Fund Board which were transferred to the custody of the Library in the early 1980 s. Nga Moteatea is the single most important source of Maori waiata and poetry and the publication of part four will be a major contribution to Maori studies. Publication is planned for 1990.

Margaret Scott has been awarded the National Library Research Fellowship for 1989, for a joint project with Gillian Boddy to produce a new edition of Katherine Mansfield’s notebooks. The originals of the notebooks, covering the period 1904 to 1922, were purchased by the Turnbull in 1957 at Sotheby’s auction, as part of the literary estate of John Middleton Murry. A selection from the notebooks was edited by Murry and published in 1954 as the Journal of Katherine Mansfield.

Dr J. E. Byrne has been awarded the Fulbright Research Fellowship for 1989, to undertake a comparative study of the development of newspapers in New Zealand and the United States in the period 1840-1890. Dr Byrne worked in journalism prior to joining the staff of the United States National Archives, and has just retired as editor of the Federal Register. His doctoral thesis was on the newspaper treatment of John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859. Dr Byrne arrived in New Zealand late in February.

‘Mrs Hobson’s Album’ was a gift to the wife of Governor Hobson from the people of New Zealand. Compiled in the early 1840 s by her friends in Auckland, it has been in the Turnbull’s collections since the descendants of William Hobson sent the volume back to New Zealand at the time of the centennial celebrations in 1940. It is a delightful early Victorian compilation of sketches, verses and prose, mostly contributed by Maori and Pakeha from the Auckland area.

For well over ten years the Library has been seeking ways of publishing the album to make its treasures available to a wider audience, and to relieve pressure on the original which is now showing signs of its age and its attraction as a pictorial source. Negotiations are well advanced for the Auckland University Press to publish the album in 1990 as a sesquicentennial project, with a descriptive text by Janet Paul and Elsie Locke. A special grant has been made by the 1990 Commission to assist publication. We are delighted that the Hobson family’s generous action in 1940 in allowing this gem from the early settlement period to come back home is, fifty years later, being carried one step further by issuing the album in published form for all to enjoy.

Jacob Gruber, the 1984 Fulbright Research Scholar at the Turnbull, has published another article based on his research in New Zealand. ‘From Myth to Reality: the Case of the Moa’ was published in the Archives of Natural History, 14, no. 3 (1987), 339-52. The first fruits of his research were published, appropriately, in the Turnbull Library Record for October 1987.

‘Hearts and Minds: Six Stories by Katherine Mansfield’ was an exhibition of materials from the Alexander Turnbull Library in the National Library Gallery. It ran from 29 September 1988 to 21 January 1989, with an average attendance of 237 visitors per day. The opening saw the curators Jim and Mary Barr, and Sara Knox of Turnbull Reference, being treated to smoked salmon canapes, while in the Library foyer the Evening Post Onslow Brass Band struck up a rousing tune to greet the guests. Fiona Kidman opened the exhibition, showing in her speech her understanding of the conceptual framework within which the exhibition described Katherine Mansfield. ‘Hearts and Minds’ explored six of Mansfield’s stories, extracting themes expressive of the tensions, contradictions and constraints experienced by her and her characters. A significant feature of the exhibition was commissioned work by six women artists Marie Shannon, Megan Jenkinson, Cathryn Shine, Merylyn Tweedie, Joanna Paul and Mary-Louise Browne. Reviews of the exhibition appeared in the Evening Post 20 October 1988, and Art New Zealand, 49 (Summer 1988/89).

Bruce Ralston, Reference Section, attended the First International Congress on Family History, held in Sydney during October 1988. The five day congress was attended by 1100 genealogists and family historians. The trip also included a study tour of Australian libraries, to observe the nature and level of family history services. Libraries similar to the Turnbull face the same demand for information needed for studying a family’s history. The Australian Bicentenary has created a greater interest in peoples’ origins, as well as an increased need for the reproduction of resources for study in this area. Since mid 1987 the Turnbull Library has been involved in indexing for INNZ, the database index which is the National Library’s successor to Index to New Zealand Periodicals. The index provides access to New Zealand journal articles in the arts, humanities and social sciences. The main advantage of automated indexing is that a wider range of material is now available and can be accessed in many libraries throughout the country. Readers using the Reference Section of the Library in person, should note that journals being indexed for INNZ no longer have card entries filed into the Biographies, Reference or Shipping indexes.

In late 1988 SeTo Publishing Ltd, Auckland, produced facsimile and trade editions of Aurora Australis, bringing to a successful conclusion five years of work involving the company and the Library. Aurora Australis, edited by Ernest Shackleton, was published at the winter quarters of the British Antarctic Expedition of 1907-09. It was the first book published in the polar regions. The copy used for the reproductions was gifted to the Turnbull in 1936 by Sir Joseph Kinsey, who was a close friend of Alexander Turnbull, as well as a friend and attorney to Shackleton. The copy is one of two held by the Library. It is thought fewer than ninety were printed by Shackleton and his team.

The Library has recently completed a comprehensive card index to Akaroa and Banks Peninsula (Akaroa, 1940), compiled by W. E. M. Jacobson. The book is a major local history about the inhabitants of the peninsula. As well as biographical entries, the index contains references to early settlement, places and organisations. The Library is investigating ways of making the index more widely available.

As from November 1988 all cartographic materials acquired by the Turnbull have been catalogued onto the New Zealand Bibliographic Network (NZBN). Records of cartographic materials will therefore once again appear in the National Bibliography. The sixth and final acquisitions list for cartographic materials to be issued since the suspension of section three of the National Bibliography at the end of 1985, was published in December 1988. It records all new publications received, mainly under the provisions of Legal Deposit, by the Cartographic Collection. Copies of this, and previous lists, can be obtained from the Curator, Cartographic Collection.

A generous additional grant from the Lilbum Trust has enabled the Archive of New Zealand Music to purchase an Ultra Imagineering Computer, a printer and INMAGIC software. The latter has excellent search and retrieval facilities, which will be particularly useful for handling manuscript music scores. Mr Brian Salkeld has donated his fine collection of New Zealand sound recordings, built up over many years and widely used in broadcasts.

In August 1988 Nicola Frean, the Newspaper Librarian, attended the IFLA/LAA Conference in Sydney. She went on to visit several newspaper collections in Australian institutions, gathering useful information on policies and practices in the areas of microfilming, indexing and reference services for newspapers. Due to financial constraints the Newspaper Collection will no longer automatically receive copies of all newspapers microfilmed by the National Library’s Microfilm Production Unit. A list of all microfilm produced will be available instead, and orders for requested films will be available within 48 hours at the Newspaper Research Room.

Sten Aminoff, the Swedish Ambassador to New Zealand in the late 19705, spent many hours in the Turnbull tracing the histories of Swedes who settled in New Zealand. He worked closely with Turnbull staff in acquiring manuscript and pictorial material on Swedish settlers for the collections. The results of his research have now been published as Svenskama i Nya Zeeland (The Swedes in New Zealand: the Swedish Emigration to New Zealand until 1940) published by Tryckericentralen in Vaxjo. The introductory text of some 100 pages is in Swedish, but the listings of 3,290 Swedes is in English. Details given include full names, date of birth, parish and country, date of arrival, date of naturalisation, date of death, whether married, the number of children, profession, and additional notes. Mr AminofFs meticulous research will provide immediate information for family historians, and the basic statistical information on Swedish migration and the Swedish contribution to New Zealand.

Information collected in life history’ interviews, and of value to researchers, has too easily in the past been buried in sound recordings, with no indication on the title or subject summary of the collection. Detailed oral history abstracts have until now provided the best type of finding aid to locate such information, but are limited by the lack of an effective indexing system. More sophisticated ways of searching within the finding aids has long been needed. Such a development is the new Oral History Database on Kiwinet. The Manuscripts and Archives Section is putting onto the database all documentation of oral history collections held, including abstracts, and shelf locations of the tapes. This will enable researchers not only within the Library, but those in other parts of the country to search Turnbull oral history holdings. It is hoped that other institutions will add their holdings to the database and create a nationwide treasury of information.

The National Library is reducing its number of staff positions by 15 per cent over the next two years as part of the government’s drive to reduce expenditure in the public sector. This is an overall reduction of 78 staff positions. The Turnbull is to reduce its staffing by 15 per cent, a total of 8 staff, by the end of June 1990. This reduction in staff at a time of increased public demand on the Library’s services is likely to create delays in the Library’s public service areas and an increase in the backlogs of unprocessed materials. Margaret Calder took up her position as Assistant Chief Librarian, Alexander Turnbull Library, on 10 February 1988. Margaret in fact began her career as a librarian in the Turnbull when she was sent in 1965 by the State Services Commission to see Michael Hitchings, then Acting Chief Librarian whom, the Commission said, wanted ‘someone with N.Z. History in their degree’. She remained at Turnbull until 1967, working in the Manuscripts Section, the Reference Room, and was acting Acquisitions Officer while Darea Sherratt was on leave.

In Sydney in 1968 she worked briefly in Fisher Library, University of Sydney, before moving to the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, where she worked initially in the Maps Section, then in the Pictures Section, and assisted with public service in the Reading Room, before leaving in 1973 to travel overseas. While in London she was employed as a consultant bibliographer for the Property Services Agency Library in the Department of the Environment, and had her first experience of computerised data banks European and American as well as British. She returned briefly to Wellington in 1976 during which time she was employed at the General Assembly Library (now the Parliamentary Library) as the Copyright Officer. Returning to Sydney she was again employed at the Mitchell as Pictures Librarian, a position she retained until 1987, except for a period during 1986 when she acted as Mitchell Librarian.

Margaret holds a B.A.(Hons) from Victoria University of Wellington; Diploma in Librarianship from the University of New South Wales; and, pursuing her particular interest in Australian history, completed a Diploma of Social Science from the University of New England. Returning to Wellington has been an interesting experience; the warmth of the welcome from Turnbull and National Library staff was truly encouraging and almost overcame the shock of the horizontal rain and

amazingly low temperatures. Work at the Turnbull is always interesting; the staff are as hard working, enthusiastic, and innovative now as they were twenty years ago. The changes in New Zealand society and government are very quickly reflected in the Library, and the need to be on one’s toes to meet the challenges and problems of the eighties, and perhaps the nineties, makes the job stimulating as well.’