Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2019L00148:reg:2017:p6
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2019L00148
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 2017 (pt 6/81)
Character Range: 55827–58815

National Library, 'became a species of "poor relation", suffering more discomfort, perhaps, over a longer period, than any other Commonwealth instrumentality in Canberra.'[23]  Things did not improve much over the following decades, as witnessed by visiting eminent United States librarian, John Bouchard, who, while advising Harold White on the designs for the current Library building in the late mid-1960s, commented that it was the worst-housed library of its importance in the world.[24]

The Commonwealth National Library, as well as being available to parliamentarians, also fulfilled the role of Canberra's lending library, extended lending rights to Canberra high-school children in 1928, and to all Canberra residents in 1930.  The public library function was initially serviced from the basement of Provisional Parliament House (now Old Parliament House), on Saturday mornings.  Access to the collection was also provided to the new Canberra University College, it being one of the conditions imposed by the University of Melbourne in sponsoring the college that access to the National Library collection be allowed.[25]

Under Binns' management the Commonwealth National Library continued to develop, and won praise in the Munn-Pitt Report on Australian libraries, funded by the Carnegie Corporation in 1934, whereas the general state of Australian libraries was found to be alarmingly backward.  The Munn-Pitt report was influential in providing recognition of the worth of a national library, and its potential role in coordinating a number of key library functions on a national basis.[26]

In 1935, stimulated by the Munn-Pitt report, the government finally recognised the importance of the national collection by providing funds for that function separate from funding necessary to support the rest of the Parliamentary Library.  The funds went largely to the construction of a new, small, National Library building on Kings Avenue, designed by E H Henderson, in 1935.[27]  An alternate site, on the Senate gardens side of Parliament House, was first proposed, then vigorously debated, and rejected.  The new building was intended to be the first stage of a larger development, but the extensions never happened.  The building was overcrowded from the start, and temporary storage for much of the national collection remained a necessity. The Kings Avenue National Library building was demolished in September 1970 to make way for the Edmund Barton Offices.

  Figure 24.  Commonwealth National Library, Kings Avenue, Canberra, ACT, about 1939
  Source:  National Library of Australia, nla.obj-146684068

While Binns and White continued to lobby the Government for funds to extend the 1935 National Library building, the war and post-war priorities got in the way, and it was not until the 1950s, and the start of the major expansion of Canberra by government departments, that the funding of the National Library was again visited by government.

Prime Minister Menzies