Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2019L00148:reg:2017:p15
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2019L00148
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 2017 (pt 15/81)
Character Range: 79532–82672

outraged, and Senate voted 40 to 7 in a free vote to have it reinstated in Parliament House, where it stayed.[62]

In the weeks leading up to the opening, the staff had moved its collections from the scattered repositories around Canberra.  One million books, nearly 3.5 million metres of movie film, 400,000 aerial photographs, 200,000 maps, 25,000 pictures and prints and great quantities of microfilm, manuscripts, periodicals and newspapers were moved from the temporary storage spaces.  These included the Nissen huts on the current site of the National Gallery (dubbed the 'Tunnels'), the wooden hospital buildings at Acton, a disused mortuary, a furniture store in Queanbeyan, a shed at Duntroon, rooms at the Institute of Anatomy, a store at Kingston railway yards, an explosives shed at Mugga quarry (for nitrate film), and the basement of the Administration Building.[63]

In the words of historian Eric Sparke, the building became 'beloved by the tourists and hated by the cognoscenti'.[64]  This ambivalence continues.  Jennifer Taylor in her major survey of post-1960 buildings in Australia said, 'It is an uneventful building surrounded by a restrained colonnade with some classical pretensions that evidences an unsuccessful attempt to attain the monumentality requested by the client.'[65]  A recent guide to Canberra architecture appears to share this view, though it points out that the building has become one of the most popular iconic monuments of the Parliamentary Zone.[66]

  Figure 27.  Exterior of the National Library of Australia, Canberra, May 1968
  Source:  National Library of Australia, nla.obj-136760924

  Figure 28.  Officials and dignitaries being addressed at the opening of the National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1968
  Source:  National Library of Australia, nla.obj-137368649

  Figure 29.  Main Reading Room from eastern end, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1968
  Source:  National Library of Australia, nla.obj-144064880

  Figure 30.  Front view of the National Library of Australia with forecourt and fountains, 1968
  Source:  National Library of Australia, nla.obj-144065762

  Figure 31.  Foyer of the National Library of Australia, 1968
  Source:  National Library of Australia, nla.obj-144065913

  Figure 32.  Display cases in the foyer of the National Library of Australia, 1968.  This exhibition space is now the bookshop.
  Source:  National Library of Australia, nla.obj-144066066

  Figure 33.  View from mezzanine looking into entrance foyer of National Library of Australia, 1968
  Source:  National Library of Australia, nla.obj-144066249

  Figure 34.  Card catalogue at National Library of Australia, 1968.  This space is now in the vicinity of the Central Foyer to the Main Reading Room.
  Source:  National Library of Australia, nla.obj-144066439

  Figure 35.  Ferguson Room on first floor at the National Library of Australia, 1968
  Source:  National Library of Australia, nla.obj-144066800

  Figure 36.  Conference room at the National Library of Australia, 1968
  Source:  National Library of Australia, nla.obj-144067016

  Figure 37.  Tom Bass