Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2019L00148:reg:2017:p3
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2019L00148
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 2017 (pt 3/81)
Character Range: 47891–50734

Joint Library Committee, and was the model for National Librarians including Kenneth Binns and Harold White.  It was also a continuing model referred to repeatedly by the Parliamentary Library Committee, and the Public Works Committee in 1924 accepted the Library of Congress model when they decided West Block should be occupied by the Library.[12]  However, it appears never to have been stated government policy or its intention to create a parallel to the Library of Congress, and this was not given statutory effect.  The long history of the development of the Library, and the form it finally took, suggests that if the Library of Congress was a model at all, it was only in the broadest form as a great national library.[13]  The general feeling that the Library of Congress was an appropriate model was not really questioned until the Paton Inquiry in 1957.[14]

What is clear, however, is that contrary to many other parliamentary processes borrowed from Britain and adopted by the new Commonwealth Parliament, the British House of Commons Library was not the model for the Australian Parliamentary Library and National Library, as it operated on an entirely different basis and was never seen as being a broad-based national library.[15]

As early as 15 April 1901, Atlee Hunt approached the Victorian Chief Secretary asking for several officers, including the Parliamentary Librarian, to be allowed to act temporarily for the Commonwealth.  However, the Victorian Parliamentary Librarian died, and was not replaced by the time the Joint Parliamentary Library Committee was elected by the Senate and House of Representatives on 5 June 1901.[16]  The Library Committee met on 26 June, and discussed the appointment of a librarian.  It referred a request to consider such an appointment to Barton, and he replied on 1 July that the arrangement would be that the Victorian Parliamentary Library would be used, and a Victorian Parliamentary Librarian borrowed to run it.  The Victorian Parliament appointed Arthur Wadsworth to the position on July 5, and on the same day gave an executive order for 'certain officers to act for and on behalf of the Federal Government for such time as the Government may remain in possession of the Victorian Parliament House.' [17]

Wadsworth remained a 'borrowed officer' of the Commonwealth Parliament for almost 27 years, while Parliament remained in Victoria.  Wadsworth was formally appointed Commonwealth Librarian as a Commonwealth public servant only shortly before his retirement, on the eve of the move of Parliament to Canberra in 1927.  Only a small proportion of the Victorian Parliamentary Library collection was moved to that parliament's new home in the Exhibition Building, the substantial part staying at Parliament House for the use of the Commonwealth under Wadsworth's control.

The