Geoffrey Alley, Librarian
and Director Country Library Service 1937-1945,
Director National Library Service 1945-1964,
National Librarian 1964-1967.
Geoffrey Alley ,
Librarian
Librarian
His Life and Work
Victoria University Press
Victoria University Press
Copyright ©
First published 2006
Isbn-13: 978-0-86473-534-8
Isbn-10: 0-86473-534-0
Printed by Astra Print, Wellington
Dedicated toRosemary Hudson ,
chief adviser and helper
Contents
List of Illustrations
After page 224:
- Clara Alley (née Buckingham) wife of Frederick Alley.
- Frederick Alley's farm, near Lumsden, which he bought in 1905-6.
Geoffrey T. Alley ,South Island rugby rep 1926 and 1927.G.T. Alley , All Black 1926 and 1928.- Clara Alley in 1930.
- Euphan Jamieson in 1923, who married Geoffrey Alley in 1930.
James Shelley , Professor of Education atCanterbury College .- The WEA Library car with
Professor J. Shelley ,G.T. Alley ,G. Worthington , andJoan Osborne , Christchurch, March 1930. John Barr , Auckland City Librarian, 1913-1952.T.D.H. Hall , Clerk of the House of Representatives 1930-1945.Alister D. McIntosh , the librarian who became a notable public servant.Peter Fraser , Minister of Education when theCountry Library Service was established.- Official inauguration of the
Country Library Service , May 1938. - CLS van on the road, 1948.
Evelyn Franklin is the field librarian. - Country Library Service staff in 1940.
- Euphan and Geoffrey Alley in the early 1960s.
- Clara Alley in 1952, shortly before she died.
- Euphan Alley in 1956.
- Ebdentown Road.
Geoffrey T. Alley , Director, National Library Service.Mary P. Parsons , Director, Library School, 1945-1947.A. Graham Bagnall , Chief Librarian, Alexander Turnbull Library.W. John Harris , Librarian, University of Otago, 1935-1948.Clifford W. Collins , Librarian, University of Canterbury.Archibald G.W. Dunningham , Dunedin City Librarian, 1933-1960.J.K. Hunn , author of the report, 'Proposed National Library', 1956.C. Stuart Perry , Wellington City Librarian, 1946-1973.- The Hon.
T.P. Shand , minister in charge of the state services in the lead-up to theNational Library Act 1965. - Houses in Sydney Street East, Wellington, home of the headquarters of the National Library Service.
- Working conditions in the National Library Service, Wellington, in the 1950s.
- The first architectural concept for a
National Library building, in Hill - Street, displayed by government architect
F.G.F. Sheppard toSir John Ilott andG.T. Alley . - A 1960 model
Clsvan in Wingfield Street in 1969. - Committee of Officers, National Library of New Zealand, 1967.
- Committee of Officers, National Library of New Zealand, after the implementation of the act in April 1966.
- Geoffrey Alley cuts the cake at a social function at the
National Library . - Paradise subdivided. 'Alley's Way' today, where Geoffrey and Euphan had their home in Ebdentown Road.
- Molesworth Street 2006: The building housing the National Library of New Zealand.
Introduction
When
[He was] arguably the greatest librarian that New Zealand has yet produced, and the greatest servant that our library profession and the
New Zealand Library Association have had …. his stature, at a time when one person could influence, and in fact determine, the direction of events in many important ways was so overwhelming that it is unlikely to be matched again. There was a small band of very able, very enthusiastic, and very determined people who created the library system of New Zealand as we know it now, and he was without question its leader. He was the one who made it happen.1
That, and the rest of the tribute, were not too bad in the light of the ephemeral occasion in which they were presented. But then, a couple of years later, I decided to write what, at first, was to be a biography of Alley, but which turned, of necessity, into a study of his life, his times, his work, and the environment in which he operated, and that was a different ball-game altogether. Seventeen years later, it has been closed off, a more interesting story, I think, because of all the other people whose roles have been discovered, the interplay between them, and the forces which determined how they worked together.
New Zealand Books in 1999, 2 wrote, 'Biographies bring the past to life in an accessible way. The rise and fall of individuals, their childhood
No society is without problems which need to be tackled. New Zealand certainly had them in the 1930s, but it was essentially a cohesive society whose members cared for and respected each other, and it had people who were capable of working together to find solutions to their problems and work out how to begin to handle them. Peter Fraser's famous educational objective, 'that every person, whatever his level of academic ability, whether he be rich or poor, whether he live in town or country, has a right, as a citizen, to a free education of the kind for which he is best fitted and to the fullest extent of his powers', was typical of the best of New Zealand in his time, and it was very relevant to the New Zealand library community, which had embarked on what was to be a thirty-year programme in which the library system was to be transformed.
Alley was not involved in the earliest stages of the process of library reform, which had been begun by a small number of librarians with the crucial support of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, but at a critical stage, when the improvement of rural library service was being considered, he was recruited by
Alley's story is therefore very largely the story of the development of the New Zealand library system from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s, but the way in which it unfolds depends on his background as a member of a notable family which was deeply concerned about education, as one with farming and sporting experience and with a respect for those people
Decades later, many of the problems are different, and the ways of handling them must naturally take account of different circumstances, but the ideal of working together co-operatively for the good of society as a whole, which was basic in the Alley era, will never be inappropriate. The aberration of the period in which massive inefficiencies resulted from a competitive model, imposed for ideological reasons by people who knew everything about Management except what it was for, will pass and be consigned to history, but as the library world recovers from its effects an account of Alley's time and the example of how he and his fellows thought and worked will have lessons for the future.
So, this is a biography up to a point but not a straight biography, a history but a history from a particular angle, an administrative study but not a theoretical one. It is a bit of a hybrid, but in the circumstances perhaps more interesting than a pure-bred. It has taken a good deal of research and a lot more thought. If it throws useful light on a corner of the past, that will make the effort worth while.
In writing this work I have been immensely grateful for the help I have had from many people and institutions. To begin with, I must acknowledge with gratitude the support I have had from members of Alley's family. Judith (Tait), Roderic, and Patrick have provided much information, suggestions, and ideas, and Ruth, living in London, has allowed me to quote from her book, Carrie Hepple's Garden. In places I have been fairly critical of their father's actions, but never once has any of them suggested that I should tone my comments down. I was able to interview Alley's sister
Another group of people has patiently read and commented on each part of the work as I have produced it, and at many times the comments they have made have enabled me to improve what they have read. I am truly grateful to them. They have included (and unfortunately I have to note that several have died before they could see the end result)
A most important addition to this list is my old friend and colleague par excellence, with a deep understanding of the professional principles involved, she has been indispensable, and she has also, in the later stages, done sterling work in checking the manuscript, in making sure that the bibliography stands up scrutiny, and in checking and verifying all the notes.
Among others who have helped in many ways have been
The staffs of a number of libraries and other organisations have been very helpful (as they normally are) in providing access to documentary information. First, of course, the National Library and the Alexander Turnbull Library, and the
Material on various topics was found in the
The Trustees of the National Library in 1989 made me a grant of $1,500 to prepare a full project proposal, but then they lost interest. This was a pity, but it meant that from then on the work was done without my feeling any financial obligation to anyone. However, ten years later, when the work was well advanced, the Trustees of the G.T. Alley Fellowship Trust, set up by the National Library Society (i.e. the 'Friends' organisation associated with the
Finally, it is a pleasure to acknowledge the sympathetic work of
Chapter1
The Alleys and the Buckinghams
John Alley arrived in Canterbury in 1857 at the age of 22, with his brother Henry, his sister Matilda, and a cousin, George.1 John, Henry, and George went to 2 In various records he is described as 'labourer', 'farmer', and 'horse dealer'.
The Alleys were Protestant Irish, members of the Church of Ireland in the Anglican communion and of the Irish establishment since Cromwell's day. They farmed in County Laois near Dublin. An earlier member of the family, William, had been bishop of Exeter during the reign of Elizabeth I; of him it was said that 'he was well stored, and his library well replenished, with all the best sort of writers, which most gladlie he would impart and make open to everie good scholar and student, whose companie he did desire and embrace; he seemed to the first appearance to be a rough and an austere man, but in verie truth, a verie courteous, gentle, and an affable man … only he was somewhat credulous, and of a hasty beleefe, and of light credit, which he did oftentimes mislike, and blame in himselfe'.3
One can see parallels between the character of Bishop Alley and the later New Zealand branch of the family, but between them lie also two centuries of life in a minority Irish community notable for its independence, uprightness, stubbornness, and success in literary, administrative and military fields. Just as New Zealanders of European origin have evolved a character and a nationalism of their own alongside their Polynesian compatriots in somewhat less than two centuries, so the Alleys from Ireland were distinctively Irish.
On 20 September 1864 John Alley, aged 29, married Sarah Ward, four years his junior, who had been in New Zealand since 1850, having come out with her brothers. Sarah's family was another Protestant one. Their home was in County Down, south of Belfast, but they had known and intermarried with the Alleys in Ireland, to the extent that they were apt to 4 True to form, Sarah's brother James married John's sister Matilda in New Zealand.
Three children were born to John and Sarah. Henry John arrived on 9 July 1865; 5 When Amy was baptised on 16 February, her father was recorded as 'John, deceased, cattle dealer'.6
So Sarah was left, at the age of 30, with three small children and a tiny farm on which she lived in a cob house with a thatched roof, doing the heavy work herself.7 She was indomitable. She has also been described as a charming Irishwoman who was much ahead of her time and keen on the education of women, a committed Anglican, and devoted to the Queen and all she stood for.8 Later, when a grandchild asked her why she had not married again, she drew herself up and replied with dignity, 'What was good enough for the dear Queen was good enough for me.'9
Of her three children, Frederick was the one on whom Sarah placed her ambitious hopes. He was to be an Anglican parson, and to that end he had to walk not only to school in Papanui and back during the week, but also to Sunday school, choir practice, and church.10 Given his Irish ancestry, it is not surprising that he was not submissive enough to follow the path that had been laid out for him. In any case, his later reading of Darwin and other writers caused him to have severe doubts about Anglican orthodoxy. Although he did not become irreligious, he adopted the Unitarian position, which was later interpreted by his son Rewi in this way: 'I believe there is a universal god that orders life and evolution, but I do not believe in Christ as a physical son of God, only as a great leader of mankind. I love to go to church to sing and listen to the beautiful poetry of the service but cannot say the creed, although I believe in Christ's teachings.'11
Instead of the church, Frederick chose teaching as a career. He was appointed to a pupil-teacher position at 12
It was when he was teaching at Irwell that Frederick met 13
The Buckinghams were of solid English yeoman stock of the kind who, in Trollope's novels, were highly regarded and treated with respect by the squire but did not expect to be invited to dine. They were Methodists, and teetotallers, and their family had provided mayors and aldermen in Suffolk and Norfolk. Thomas, Clara's father, had a farm at Hethersett, a pleasant village six miles from Norwich, and in his prime was known as 'the strongest man in Norfolk'. Clara and her older sister,
Like many other English arable farmers, the Buckinghams fell on hard times in the late 1870s. The corn laws, which were designed to protect British farmers from overseas competition, were repealed about 1850, but the effect of this move was not seriously felt until the mid-1870s, when improved transport, both within North America and across the Atlantic, enabled vast quantities of prairie wheat to flood the English market. And then there was, from 1875, a series of wet summers which ruined English crops.
Waitangi on 5 January 1882, arriving 105 days later at Lyttelton on 21 April. They stayed for a while at Sudeley Farm, Irwell, which was being managed by Philip Goldsmith, and then Thomas decided to go south with
Thomas and Lucy Buckingham, Clara's parents, were hard-working farmers; they were also great readers, active in community affairs, and fond parents. Of Thomas it was said that he never spoke a cross word. They felt their separation from their two daughters keenly, and in 1888 Thomas made a trip to Canterbury to stay at Sudeley Farm. There he died suddenly on 13 March, aged only 58 and only six years after making the huge move 14
Frederick and Clara were both aged 25 when they married, Clara having been born six weeks before her husband, on 25 October 1866. Frederick had just been appointed headmaster of Kowai Pass School 15 at Springfield, at the start of the hills on the road from Canterbury to the West Coast. While they lived in Springfield the first three of their seven children were born: 16
Frederick was by this time forming his own educational philosophy, which was strongly influenced by 17 was also involved in women's causes and in the temperance movement, which was at that time an important element of those causes. She contributed signature no.185 to the Springfield sheet of the 1893 women's suffrage petition which led to the extension of the parliamentary suffrage to women in that year.18 She was an active member of the Malvern Women's Institute and in April 1896, as its president, attended the first meeting of the National Council of Women of New Zealand, which had been convened by a group of Christchurch women and was presided over by 19 The meeting was reported widely in newspapers and was called the Hen Convention by some who were not ready to change with the times; Clara, as one of the youngest participants, thought of herself as 'the gay young chicken'.20
Of the resolutions adopted by the 1896 meeting, this one, which was proposed by Clara, was typical of her interests at the time: 'That this Council is of opinion that the marriage laws of New Zealand should be rendered remedial, not merely palliative, of disabilities at present grievously affecting married women, and to this end the whole law relating to marriage founded on the exploded doctrine of "possession" or "coverture" should be repealed.'21
In 1898 Frederick was appointed headmaster at Amberley, a thriving rural town some 30 miles north of Christchurch. At 120 in that year, the school's roll was double that of Kowai Pass, and the salary was also somewhat higher, at £208 instead of £158. The Alleys stayed there until 22 Three more children were born in the Amberley years: Philip John (Pip) on 22 May 1901,
Gwen and Rewi were both old enough in their Amberley days to remember them when they wrote their autobiographies. In Rewi's memory they did not include winters: 'It always seemed to be summer.'23 Gwen remembered the little creek which crossed Church Street three times as it meandered through the school playground, the Alleys' garden, then the vicarage and the doctor's grounds;24 for the headmaster, the vicar, and the doctor lived in the same street and their children played with each other exclusively. Clara's radicalism did not allow her to contemplate the threat that her children might learn vulgar colonial ways from others.
The two-storeyed Amberley schoolhouse (which is no longer standing) had four bedrooms and four living rooms. There was no bathroom, and there was only one cold tap for water. Cooking and water heating were done on a shining black coal stove. And yet, by the standards of those days, it was a comfortable home. Above the mantelpiece in the dining room there was a big photograph of the first 25
Frederick's final move as a teacher was to Wharenui in Christchurch, where he became the first headmaster on 1 March 1907,26 with very little increase in salary. He remained there until 1921. This school had four acres of land on Cutler's Road (now Matipo Street), which ran south from Riccarton Road not far but over the railway line from South Hagley Park. Its roll reached over 400 in Frederick's last years, and peaked at over 900 before the establishment of new schools and demographic changes reduced the number of available pupils. In the early 1990s it was below 200, but by then the school was notable for its association with one of its first pupils, Rewi Alley, and was visited regularly by Chinese pilgrims, particularly from Gansu province.
This, of course, is looking into the future, but it is appropriate at this point to look ahead to see what was to become of the family that Frederick and Clara had started on its way, even though some of the events that are mentioned here will be dealt with in more detail later, as they impinge on Geoff 's life and work. Eric, who was 14 when the move to Wharenui took place, died in the First World War, but all the others were involved in education of one kind or another. Gwen became an innovative infant teacher and later developed a community centre with her husband, 27 Kath, who represented Canterbury at hockey while she was still at school, was also a gifted teacher. The last of the family,
Frederick's sister Amy (the redoubtable Aunt Amy to her nephews and nieces) was another teacher, remembered by a former pupil in her infant class at Sydenham as gruff but kindly. It was a joke in the family that even Henry, Frederick's brother, who followed their father's interest in horses, was an educationalist. His book, Education of the Horse, published in 1913 and 'especially dedicated to all true lovers of the Horse, and to all young farmers who wish to better the conditions of "Breaking-in" and to increase the ease of training the Horse to both saddle and harness', could be (and possibly is) used to advantage today. 'Yarding the colt should be done in as quiet a manner as possible,' he says. 'The great point is not to frighten the colt into the stable, but to edge him in quietly. In this simple operation a horse trainer will test his patience, that indispensable quality of a horse trainer – Patience.'
As well as being educators of one kind or another, Frederick's and Clara's children were all, in varying degrees, achievers. They were upright and honest, they were workers, their minds were well stocked, and whatever they set out to do they did. In some cases, what they did was innovative and important for society. In the eyes of their acquaintances (and indeed of themselves, to a large extent) Clara deserved most of the credit for their success. Frederick was a more shadowy figure, and much of the picture of him that has survived is pretty negative. And yet, it takes two to produce such a brood, and Frederick's influence on his children was so strong, in ways both positive and negative, affecting each of them in a different way from the way it affected the others, that it is desirable to consider his role also. Much that is puzzling, or even just interesting, about each member of the family can be traced back to Frederick's impact, and this is especially important in Geoff 's case.
First, though, a word or two about Clara. She was universally loved, and her children adored her. She was the kingpin of the family, according to one very old friend;28 one 'who for more than sixty years helped me by her example and wisdom', in the words of another.29 30 Oliver Duff ('Sundowner' in the New Zealand Listener), writing after her death, remembered her from way back as 'a perfect mother, neither a Martha nor a Mary, but a blend of both, competent and assiduous in all material ways, and at the same time unruffled by the stresses of mind and spirit that rack every parent whose children are originals and not patterns'.31 Rewi said, 'She loved ducks, bees, roses, cats, tramps and all kids', 32 and when 33 She impressed herself on people's minds.
Clara was very well-read and, as her activities in the 34 She was, on the other hand, something of an élitist, and hankered for the English life she had left behind, and she found it hard to express affection physically. In build she took after her father, on a small scale, with a long back and short legs; this build she passed on to some of her children, including Geoff (on a large scale). Clara will appear at a number of points throughout this story, but now Frederick needs to be considered in some detail.
Frederick shared many of Clara's pluses, as well as having some of his own. He also had a greater share of minuses, and it was the combination of the two that made such an impact on his children. He was, as Clara had said in her pre-marital comment, 'a man with a few ideas'. His rejection of a comfortable career in the church was not untypical of the kind of high seriousness which he imbibed partly from his mother, partly no doubt from his own temperament, and partly from the kind of stiff-necked independence of the Irish Protestant, whether Presbyterian or Anglican. The rejection did not imply any kind of hedonism. In fact, in the view of one younger associate of the family, he lost his faith but not his zeal; in the eyes of another, he was a victim of circumstances, who desperately tried to do something to improve the world around him. In a way, he tried to use his children as instruments in furthering his ideals. His own stern sense of duty, which had positive effects outside the family, was in many ways a burden to those within it.
Frederick's causes included the improvement of educational theory and practice, extending into the promotion of reading and the arts, and the Maoriland Worker, which was connected with the Federation of Labour.
Like many serious people with liberal views, he did not allow his liberalism to extend to interested consideration of opposing views. There are stories of his sitting at the breakfast table giving his opinions on current events without allowing any opportunity for other contributions to be made, but this was, of course, consistent with his ideas, fairly typical of the time, on the role of the head of the family, another matter on which he held very serious views.
'His real friends were his books,' his daughter Gwen wrote, 'Carlyle, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Dickens, 35 Joy remembered
As a teacher Frederick was strict, innovative, and inspiring. He used corporal punishment a good deal – who did not in those days? – but he was genuinely concerned to help his pupils and to ensure that the brighter ones won scholarships to secondary schools. In his pamphlet Something Wrong Somewhere, published in 1911, he wrote of the contrast between the first five years of life, when 'the child can form a sentence in a language that has taken tens of thousands of years to evolve', and the deadliness of the next five years at school,36 and said, 'Let us "begin young" with the subject that harmonises most with the child's mind, and delete from the early part of the school syllabus all that violates the law of economy of effort, i.e. part (only) of arithmetic, writing with a pen at too early a stage, the useless parts of drawing and premature handwork, the unnatural teaching of language apart from its context.'37 He was drawing on Pestalozzi's ideas on how education was intended to develop children's powers, to draw out what they possessed already at birth, and to develop a love of nature and of music. Following these principles, his method of teaching natural history was to take children outside, to consider the lilies of the field, as it were, when many teachers relied mainly on text books.
The importance of true language teaching, the teaching of language in context, was, he wrote, that 'the more words and ideas a child acquires, the faster becomes his progress. Every word added to his vocabulary brings others in its train, but with a constantly increasing speed.'38
In the same pamphlet, Frederick gave his rather candid views of school 39
Frederick clearly did not overdo the tactical pleasing of inspectors, but whether because they were innately tactful or merely shrewd, those who inspected his schools do not seem to have been unduly affected by his published remarks. 'Work directed with ability and energy, and the methods aim at developing intelligence' (1909); 'Impression of capable control combined with vigorous teaching. Methods employed are stimulating and calculated to develop intelligence' (1911): these are typical pre-pamphlet remarks.40 Later reports varied from year to year, some being more critical than others, but in 1912, after the publication of the pamphlet, the inspector said, 'The results of the inspection give proof that earnest and unremitting attention is being given not only to the educational interests of the children as expressed in the requirements of the syllabus of instruction, but, also, in that higher field of work which has for its object the training and development of the character of the children.'41 The 1916 and 1917 reports were critical, the 1918, 1919, and 1920 ones complimentary.42 On the whole, the inspectors seem to have been pleased with Frederick.
The Wharenui school history says that 'Mr Alley, of a shy, retiring nature, was possessed of a sound judgement, was just and fair, and had a good sense of humour. He was a splendid headmaster'.43 Old pupils of his have confirmed this description, but have added that they felt sorry for his own children, who, they thought, were treated very roughly by him, and there is no doubt that terms such as 'tyrant', which have been applied to him by family members, had some justification. He was not, however, a bad parent in the sociological sense. Everything that he did in relation to his family was intended to be for their benefit, and in many cases what were seen to be his faults could also be seen as virtues carried to excess. It is also very likely that he wished to ensure that his own children got the kind of start in life that had been made difficult for him by his father's early death. His intentions were good, but good intentions unalloyed sometimes produce unfortunate results.
Frederick's treatment of Sundays illustrates his way of managing his family. He would not allow his children to attend Sunday school because he did not want them to have beliefs forced on them before they were able
The learning of texts was only part of the régime that Frederick imposed on his family. There was a constant pressure to learn, to achieve physical fitness, to carry out numerous jobs, all under the stern watchfulness of father. 'He could produce thick blue tension all through the house,' according to Gwen.44 He often made arbitrary decisions affecting members of the family without considering whether they wished to be moved like pawns on his chessboard. Above all, he insisted not only that Alleys should do their best, but that they should be the best, and that a good runner-up was not good enough. This undoubtedly indicated some kind of anxiety in Frederick's make-up, but it was a terrible burden to place on any child, particularly a sensitive one, and it certainly harmed more than one of the family. And yet – they did emerge as individuals, as workers and as achievers. Who knows how they might have developed under a different kind of régime?
Eric was assessed by his father as 'a good all-rounder'. Gwen, Pip and Geoff seem to have borne the brunt of his attention because he regarded them as especially promising material, though Gwen got off more lightly because he treated the boys more seriously than the girls. Rewi, who was fairly laid back and would look into the distance and think before answering a question, when his father expected a quick response, was written off as 'a Norfolk dumb-bell' and managed to evade attention,45 and this could account for Airey's comment that 'there is a vast difference between Rewi Alley's inability to be idle when there is something to be done and his father's deification of work'.46
Gwen's reaction to her father's régime was to become dogmatic and forthright; in later years 'she was in no doubt at all that she had influenced the world for the better'.47 Geoff, on the other hand, who had an Alley temperament in a Buckingham body, was badly affected by his father's expectations, and also, as time went on, developed the same kinds of anxieties. His very close friend Jim Burrows gives a rather poignant picture of him as an immensely strong man, 'a giant of a man', seldom willing to speak about anything in his father's presence.48
Joy, the youngest daughter, has said that, 'If my father has been described as a formidable person he was never seen in that light by me, I was never afraid of him',49 and Geoff told a friend, in his later years, that he thought the family all forgave his father in the end.50 This might have been true of most of them but Kath, in letters and discussions, described him as a 'monster' to the end of her life. The most affectionate account of him is New Zealand Monthly Review,51 which can be accepted as a dispassionate account by one who had ducked from under.
Frederick was also what Geoff recalled as 'a victim of the land-hunger that so many of the new settlers and their progeny seem to have had in their make-up'.52 He needed to have a patch of soil to feel that he belonged to mother earth. He helped his mother, when possible, on her farm, and he and his sister Amy each bought a block at North Beach when that area was a wasteland: sandhills, no roads or paths, and little sign of human habitation. It was a marvellous place for family holidays, as was the Southland farm which he bought subsequently and to which we must pay some attention later.
The North Beach block was eventually broken up into six or more sections, each of which sold for more than the cost of the original block,53 but on the whole Frederick, as a landowner, was not a worldly success. His name does not stand alongside those of Rutherford, Robinson, or Rhodes in the annals of Canterbury; nor did he accumulate acres to arouse envy in the breasts of others, to be broken up or hung on to.
Perhaps because he was not entrepreneurially very successful, Frederick developed ideas on land policies which he pursued with determination but without having a marked effect on public opinion. He was one of the Press's regular correspondents and between 1918 and 1935 published three pamphlets on the subject, in the second of which54 he promoted the interests of (a) men with little money, to be a new class of state leaseholders with long, renewable leases, and (b) the industrialised large farm, 'the main hope of agriculture', and argued for an 'advances to settlers system, a state monopoly in all land sales, urban and rural, and a heavy tax on unearned increment aimed at speculators in land'. Rewi, writing in 1967 from a Beijing perspective, found these arguments beguiling.55
Frederick's main investment in land was a farm near Lumsden in Southland, which he bought in sections in 1905 and 1906 after some shuffling of purchases made in the immediately preceding years, and which he held until his death in 1936.56 It comprised some 460 acres on the south side of a road, now known as Keown Road, running off the present
The land in the crook of the Elbow is very stony, with hard pans which prevent natural drainage. Most of it has now been drained, but in Frederick's day the thin layer of soil was boggy in winter and too dry in summer. He ran sheep on it, with some cattle, but seldom had more than 400 of the former, the maximum being 1092 in 1924, compared with 221 in 1923 and 130 in 1925.57 Even in the 1990s, after draining, fencing, top-dressing, and tree planting, it supported only some 1500 sheep and 20 cattle. This is somewhat below the level expected of a prosperous Southland farm.58
The farm was, in fact, an awful one. Frederick did not have enough capital to make it economically viable, and he had great difficulty in finding managers for it. But it was very important to him personally and he loved it. Even though the winters are harsh, the area, on the road to
Frederick was something of a crank, and the crankiness became more marked in his retirement years, when Clara blossomed as the kingpin of the family,59 but he was basically a good man. He was short on tact, but tact can be overdone, as we can see in the synthetic sincerity that is offered by so many public figures. It is perhaps best to let Rewi sum him up: 'Of wild Irish stock, born a New Zealander, he left, like all good teachers do, his imprint on many a youthful mind. As kids, we were scared enough of the "Old Man", for he was always strict though not always just. But yet none of us, throughout our lives, ever forgot him.'60
Chapter2
The Education of Geoffrey
1 He remained the apple of his mother's eye for the rest of her life.
He was enrolled at Wharenui School, joining Gwen and Pip there, on his fifth birthday, 4 February 1908.2 He was a bright pupil, being dux of the school when he completed his primary education and being awarded an Education Board scholarship for secondary education at the end of 1914, before he was 12. In 1912 he was awarded a first prize by the Christchurch Literary and Musical Competitions Society in class no.20, Recitation Boys (under 11 years).3
Geoff was also the hero of an incident which caught the eye of the school's historian: 'The boys held their own at football. Every year they played Fendalton and West Christchurch. In one match against West Christchurch about 1912 the match stood at 3 to nil in our favour. There was one very small boy who was too small to be put in front, so they put him fullback. One of the opposing forwards broke away and had a clear run to our goal line. Everyone thought the game was up, but this small boy threw himself at the forward and brought him down, and the game was saved … That small boy was Geoff Alley.'4 This was not a flash in the pan. Frederick had played rugby for 5 and, with his passion for physical fitness, undoubtedly pointed his sons in the same direction.
All the boys went on to
Eric went to Boys' High in 1909, having presumably spent some time at 6 despite his father's opinion of him, in 1912. In 1911 Eric was sent to manage the Lumsden farm, and he seems to have taken enthusiastically to the life there. Judging by the photographs of him printed in Gwen's autobiography, he was a handsome young man, with a prominent nose, a strong jaw, and a severe expression.7 He was tall, as Geoff later became, but slighter in build, more like his father. He had spent six years in the school cadets, one of them as an officer, and at Lumsden he joined the Territorials, being granted a commission as lieutenant from 8 July 1912.8
As a matter of interest, Rewi and Pip were much shorter than their brothers: Rewi stood at 5 ft 6 in. (168 cm),9 Pip a little more. Of the girls, Gwen and Joy were small, Kath taller.
Geoff was sent to help Eric for a while in 1913. It was not a happy experience for him, since Eric did not understand the limited capabilities of a 10-year-old, but Eric was a great success with the locals. In uniform, on his horse Percy, he cut a dashing figure. He taught in Sunday school, having been baptised in the Lumsden Anglican church on 25 August 1912,10 and one Lumsden resident who was a young pupil of his at the time still, in 1991, treasured a card he sent her from Cairo when he was in the army.11 He enlisted in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (Nzef) on 16 August 1914 and embarked, with Percy, on 16 October, as a lieutenant in the
Geoff and Pip both entered
By the time Geoff had won his prize, Eric's military career had run its course. He served on Gallipoli, leaving Percy behind in Egypt. The horse 12 and then Eric was shot through both legs on 8 August 1915,13 in the action on Chunuk Bair. He recuperated in the Royal Free Hospital in London, returning to his unit in Egypt in February 1916. In March 1916 he was promoted to captain and transferred to the 2nd Brigade Otago Infantry Regiment in France. There, on the night of 16/17 June, he led the first New Zealand raid in the period before the Somme battle, undertaken by a party of volunteers whom he had trained beforehand, its purpose being to investigate a new German system of trenches. Of the 83 other ranks taking part, one was killed and five wounded; of the five officers, four were wounded, one of whom, Eric, died the next day.14 A chaplain, writing to Frederick, called the action 'a highly successful raid';15 the official historian said that it revealed nothing of particular consequence.16 Both statements were probably correct.
Eric was mentioned in despatches some months later. The original wooden cross placed on his grave in Bailleul was later returned to New Zealand and is now housed in the old Anglican church in Lumsden. His name was one of 62 read out at an Anzac Day service at 17 and it is also inscribed on the war memorial in Lumsden. But one of the best tributes to him lies in a box in the Rewi Alley Collection in the University of Canterbury Library. Written on 6 June 1916, in indelible pencil on an army message form by a corporal whose signature is illegible, it reads: 'Captain Alley, I would like to ask if there is any position attached to you that I could fulfill as I would willingly follow you through anything that might happen.'18
Gwen was one who had a mind of her own. When she left school she said that she wanted to teach. Frederick's response was that he did not want a bluestocking for a daughter, but while he was away at the farm she went ahead and got herself a pupil-teacher job at Elmwood School. This was in 1913; two years later she enrolled at the teachers' training college. She weathered spectacular storms on both occasions, but stuck to her guns.19
In September 1915 Rewi sat and failed an examination for entry to the Royal Military College of Australia in Duntroon.20 Writing much later, he said that 'from my earliest days soldiering has been my passion', but that, 'as the time for examination came along, it became clear to me that if I went to Duntroon and spent four years there, I should miss the war where, being fit and in my estimation old enough, I thought I should be'.21 Accordingly, Rewi changed his month of birth back from December to May and enlisted in the NZEF as a private on 30 March 1917. Like Eric before him, he got himself baptised on 26 April.22 He was wounded twice in France, in April and September 1918, and was awarded the Military Medal.23 His second wound was quite serious, but typically, when Edna 24
At the end of 1917, Frederick decided to deal with his current staffing problems by taking Geoff away from school for a year and sending him, at the age of nearly 15, to manage the farm. Rewi approved; in a letter to his father from France he said: 'A bit of the roughing will teach him how to look after himself as it taught me, while he can learn many things, a great many valuable things.'25
When Geoff returned to school in 1919 he had probably gained a great deal in maturity, and he had certainly gained in size and strength. It was from this stage that he began to stand out among his fellows, especially in shot-putting and other field sports and in rugby. He was a member of the rugby team which in 1920 won the Moascar Cup, brought back from Egypt by the New Zealand Division, for the first year in which it was put up by the 26
The school's first XV won the Moascar Cup again in 1921, but Geoff was not a member of the team. He left school in May 1921 to go to manage the Lumsden farm for an indefinite period. Pip had left at the end of 1919 to take an engineering course at
Geoff was a pupil at mens sana in corpore sano. 27 The future educationalist 28
Geoff, who was a natural sceptic, probably saw in
So Geoff left school at the age of 18, having passed the matriculation examination and qualified for the higher leaving certificate, to become a farm manager for an absentee owner who was not only his father but was also inclined to want to make arbitrary management decisions of his own.
Before Geoff took up his farming career the family made another move. For 10 years after Frederick's appointment to Wharenui they lived in Division Street, not far from the school, but Frederick then had a house built in Cutler's Road, even closer. Clara put a lot of effort into helping to design it, and she was delighted with it. But Frederick was due to retire at the end of 1921, after 40 years' service as a teacher but still only 55 years old, and the opportunity to acquire more land than was contained in a suburban section, when it was presented to him, was too alluring to resist.
One Sunday early in 1920, as Frederick was biking along Russley Road, on the outskirts of upper Riccarton, he was hailed by 29 The house was somewhat decrepit, but the Lovell-Smiths had created what they proudly believed was a rustic paradise on the land. They had decided, though, to move to an easier property and Westcote was on the market for £2250. Before he remounted his bicycle, Frederick had agreed to buy it.30 Clara was devastated, but the decision had been made.
Geoff was in charge of the Lumsden farm for nearly five years, until early in 1926. It was a formative part of his life. Edgar Snow, in writing of Rewi, described the area as 'the harsh New Zealand frontier' and quoted Rewi (who had embellished his tale, one would suspect) on the subject of 'a wild hard country with sweeping cold winds that blow through the tussocks and the wild Irishmen among them. Gorse in a blaze of yellow, rabbits by the million, and the swift Oreti river – where as a boy I more than once nearly lost my life'.31 Well, it was not quite like that. The Oreti, in fishing terms, is usually wadeable, though, like most New Zealand rivers, it is treacherous when in flood, when only a fool would try to cross it; and the wild Irishman is the humble matagouri. Nevertheless, although there were neighbouring farms and the lights of Lumsden town (population approximately 500) shone on the other side of the river, it was a lonely existence for most of the 32 and one of the neighbours remembered his living conditions as being primitive – he was rough in clothing, she said, but a nice chap, gentle, happy-go-lucky, and studious.33 He had visitors from time to time, including his father and other members of the family, Jim Burrows, 34 He was also regular in attendance at the Anglican church and occasionally read the lesson.
As a farmer Geoff was hampered by the lack of capital to make improvements, but he did experiment with the use of superphosphate, which was something of an innovation then and which still needs to be applied very regularly to the land in order to maintain production.35 He was helped by his own physical strength. 'He was the strongest man I ever knew,' said one of his neighbours. 'When he first came to the farm he had a Model T Ford and one day he wanted to jack up the right hind wheel. He put his fingers between the spokes of the wheel and lifted it off the ground and held it there while he reached round with his left hand and pushed a petrol case under the axle.'36 The last big job he did before leaving the farm was to remove an old gorse hedge with the help of a crowbar, a chain, and a horse: he held the crowbar under the roots while the horse pulled the chain, which was attached to the crowbar.37
Geoff played rugby for the Lumsden senior team, of which he became the captain. The team won the Bedford Compton Shield, which was the symbol of rugby supremacy in northern Southland, in 1924 and 1925, and also in later years after Geoff 's departure.38Another member of the team was Lance Johnson, a 'swift and elusive' five-eighth who was also later one of the 1928
In 1925 and 1926 Geoff represented Southland in rugby. He was a member of the 39 the other, slightly less tremendous, being
On 14 December 1925 Geoff was baptised in the Anglican church 40 He was thus the third of the three sons of Frederick who spent time at the Lumsden farm to take this step: Eric at the age of 19, Rewi at 19, and Geoff at 22 after mature consideration. They made their decisions for themselves, as Frederick had wished. In Geoff 's case, baptism was preliminary to his resolve to leave the farm and enter university. There were several reasons for this decision, one of them being that Frederick had not allowed Geoff the freedom of action that a manager should have. According to Gwen, the last straw was Frederick's sending off and selling some sheep that Geoff had sorted out for breeding.41 Whether this is true or not, constant interference over five years must have been unsettling. But the main, or ostensible, reason for Geoff 's move was that he wanted to train for the Anglican ministry. There is no doubt that this reason, which has been confirmed by various members of the family as well as by his close friends, was uppermost in his mind at the time, but Jim Burrows, who probably understood him better than most, said that the intention lasted six months at the outside,42 and there is no evidence of his being registered as a theological student.43 Some members of the family thought that he found a point of doctrine unacceptable, and that would have been in character, but it is more likely that he was really not sure what he wanted to do. Temperamentally, he was more inclined towards agnosticism than towards the wholehearted acceptance of doctrine of any kind. Burrows said that during this period his mind seemed often in a real turmoil, and 'Strangely enough I don't ever remember that we discussed religion.'44
It is clear, particularly from Burrows's account of him, that Geoff was severely affected by his father's dominating influence, which other members of the family were able, in varying degrees, to shrug off but which, in his case, created quite a sense of insecurity. This was at odds with his strength and commanding presence and it was not, as a rule, overt, but it led to a touchiness which his associates found hard to understand in later years. The years at Lumsden did little to help him overcome this problem, and it does seem that, for the first years after his return to Christchurch, he found it difficult to focus his energies except in areas, such as rugby, in which he was already notably successful. His initial academic record, for instance, was somewhat unnoteworthy. In 1926, after 45 He was, however, together with Burrows, on the committees of both the Football Club and the Christian Union in 1927.46
The recruitment to the Christian Union, which at that time was the most influential club at 47 of two such muscular Christians
From the time of his return to Christchurch Geoff lived at Westcote, which by then had become the symbol of the Alley lifestyle as it has been remembered by successive generations of the family. There, Frederick found fulfilment with his cows and his pigs and his crops while he thought about the problems of land tenure that faced the country, while Clara, now entering the long period when she would be known as 'Mother Alley', presided over the family, the house, and all that was made in it from the produce of the estate. It was a rich form of subsistence living, deliberately cultivated for its own sake, but it was also much more than that. Books, ideas, and music were in the very air, and Clara, who had by now become the ruling spirit of the family, had begun to make Westcote a mecca for many of the interesting people who, throughout the 1920s and 30s, made Christchurch the intellectual centre of New Zealand, in its own estimation at least. 48
Geoff and Jim Burrows fitted well into this environment, and not only because Clara regularly bound up their rugby wounds and made quite the best apple pies in Canterbury.49 Neither of them could foresee how their careers would develop, but both responded to the combination of semirural normality and intellectual stimulation. They sang a great deal, and Geoff, who had a fine bass voice, became fond of Schubert lieder (one of his favourites being 'Du bist die Ruh') and other German songs. The peace and tranquillity of this period must have had a strong healing effect; it certainly marked on Geoff 's mind the 'Westcote' image of the perfect life. It must have seemed that life like this could go on for ever when, one Christmas day, Geoff elected to have his dinner in the Jung with his friend Oliver Duff – at peace with the world, with plum duff and Oliver Duff.50
By this time Gwen was teaching infants at Oxford in North Canterbury – 'I had at last achieved what I had always wished – to teach the beginners.'51 Pip, who had not been interested in any kind of farming activity, had graduated in civil engineering in 1925. Kath and Joy were still 52
Rewi still had a hankering for the permanent army life, but was unsuccessful, because he was by now too old, in a renewed attempt to enter Duntroon. He also tried for a commission in the Indian army, but in the period after the end of the war none were available. In 1926 he was able to join the Territorials, in the 1st Battalion, Wellington West Coast Regiment, and he was gazetted 2nd lieutenant on 29 April of that year.53 Before this he had been an officer in the Legion of Frontiersmen, in which he was in 1926 a member of its headquarters staff.54 The Imperial Legion of Frontiersmen had been inaugurated in 1905 by 55 It was born of the time when German naval rearmament was causing tremors in Britain and when The Riddle of the Sands was affecting British attitudes. An Empire-wide organisation, its members wore a uniform modelled on that of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and they were prepared to help the official military authorities in whatever ways were acceptable to them. They joined up in droves in August 1914, 18,000 of them throughout the Empire, of whom 9000 were killed.56 It was an organisation that appealed to quite a number of returned soldiers after the First World War, and there are memorials in New Zealand to 'the nine thousand' in Ashburton and at National Park.57
When Rewi decided at the end of 1926 to abandon his share of the Taranaki farm and go to China, without any clear idea of what he would do there, he was therefore a rather militaristic and imperialistic young man. His first job in Shanghai was obtained through the good offices of the deputy chief of the Fire Department, whose English regiment was allied to the Wellington West Coast Regiment; and he quickly joined the Shanghai Defence Force,58 membership of which counted towards his Territorial training obligations until he was retired from the Territorials in 1933.59 He was also, however, a member in 1928–29 of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a Christian Pacifist group with which Donald Grant was associated;60 obviously, whatever conservative views he may have held were tempered by Kiwi pragmatism.
During these early years Geoff had a number of romantic encounters, one of which culminated in a temporary engagement, but towards the end of 1927 he met his future wife. On Thursday 1 December he went with the Grants to the Christchurch Cathedral to hear a performance of 61 Among the assembled audience was Euphan Jamieson, who, finding herself behind a woman with a very large hat, moved to sit with her friends the Grants and was introduced to their other friend.62
63 Euphan set out to be a teacher. She did the required year as a pupil-teacher in preparation for entry to the teachers' training college, but then, in January 1923, her father died suddenly and it was necessary for her to find a paying job. When Geoff met her she was working as a secretary-receptionist at radio station 3YA, where 64 There was no glamour attached to being on the staff of a radio station except in historical retrospect.
Geoff was at this time at the peak of his rugby career. He played regularly for the university club, another of whose members remembered him as a 'heady' player, not very fast but with the knack of being in the right place at the right time.65 In 1927 he was in the Canterbury team which won the Ranfurly Shield for the first time since its first challenge On the Ball, calls 'one of the greatest matches of the entire series' and 'one of the most exciting interisland matches ever played'.66 After trial games in the week following the inter-island match he was selected for the All Black team to tour South Africa in 1928, sharing the top statistics with Marama on 13 April 1928 and travelled from Sydney to South Africa on the Euripides, arriving in Durban on 23 May. From that date until the beginning of September it engaged in 22 titanic struggles, of which it won 16 (including two of the four tests), drew one, and lost five.67 Geoff played in 14 of the matches, 10 of them consecutively without a break, and had a personal tally of three points, scoring the single try expected of a tight forward against Western Transvaal. Unlike most, he scored between the uprights.
Rugby encounters between New Zealand and South Africa have become so important to rugby psyches that one has to remind oneself that the 1928 tour was only the second occasion on which they met. The first was in 1921, when South Africa toured New Zealand, winning one test, drawing one, and losing the third. The 1928 tour was therefore the second leg of an ongoing contest in which the giants have met to strive for what they, at least, have considered to be the rugby crown; a rivalry, moreover, which as time has passed has been spiced by great controversies. Most of these lay in the future then, but in 1928 there were two particular sources of dispute.
The first of these, which caused some disquiet at the time but did not assume major importance until much later, was over the question of whether Maori players should be included in All Black teams selected for South African tours. The most notable omission from the 1928 team was 68 It was only seven years since South African newspaper reporters had been outraged by the sight of white spectators in New Zealand applauding Maori players who treated white
More immediately, problems and controversy were caused by differences in the playing styles of the two teams, and particularly by differences in the interpretation of rules relating to the scrum. In New Zealand the standard scrum formation was 2–3–2, with a front row consisting of two hookers, a middle row with one lock and two flankers, and a two-man back row, together with a wing forward who had a roving commission and detached himself from the scrum at will. The South Africans, on the other hand, used a three-fronted scrum, with one hooker in the middle and (usually) a four-man middle row which included two locks, with the eighth man at the back.
The New Zealand formation was regarded with great affection by its supporters, and even in 1970 69 But it had two defects. One was that a two-fronted scrum tended to gain less ball than a three-fronted one. The other was that the wing forward was anathema to the International Rugby Board, on which New Zealand was not represented at that time. In the eyes of the board, and of overseas referees, a wing forward who detached himself after the ball had been hooked by his own team was offside, because he was in front of the halfback. The wing forward was therefore legislated out of existence in the early '30s ('our birthright was sold for a mess of scrummage,' says Slatter),70 and it took some time for New Zealand rugby to adjust to a different, less open, style of play. Quite apart from sentiment, though, the fact of the matter in 1928 was that the
Geoff 's position was at lock. When he locked the two-fronted, singlelock scrum he was therefore solely responsible for holding the scrum together, and he enjoyed this role. In a brief contribution to the published account of the tour he wrote that the most important point about the 2–3–2 scrum was 'that it is controlled by one man, the lock, "and one bad general is better than two good ones"'.71 World War One experience might have suggested that the best bad general was a dead one (this was not one of the best quotations in Geoff 's armoury), but the point he was making had some validity in his own case. His strength and his build made it possible for him to play the role of the one general, good or bad, and to control the impact and the direction of the scrum unimpeded. Nevertheless, he was promoting a lost cause.
The tour was enormously important in Geoff 's development. Because of the conditions of the time, when it was not possible to fly to and from a distant country, it was a very long one, and friendships which he formed and consolidated with other members of a high-performing group lasted throughout his life. They also probably did a lot for his morale at the time. It is significant that after South Africa his examination results showed that he was a good student as well as a successful rugby player. After his disastrous academic performance in 1927, he passed in all the subjects he presented himself for at the end of 1928: education II, economics, and political science, despite his other preoccupations during the year.72
In later years Geoff retained nostalgic memories of the long sea voyage from Sydney to Durban, when he and Burrows read and studied and listened to music up on deck,73 and on the rare occasions when he went overseas in his later years he preferred to travel by sea. While in South Africa he formed strong opinions about conditions in that country which give the lie to the view of those later activists who thought that an All Black going to South Africa must necessarily become tainted. Burrows tells the story of the team's visit to a predominantly Afrikaner town called Burghersdorp where, following a common South African custom, the name of the town was displayed in painted boulders spread across a neighbouring hill, or 'dorp'. Some time during the morning of their departure Geoff disappeared, and later, from a train window, he pointed out where he had been. The first letter R had been replaced by another G, and the H had been removed. 'I don't like this place,' he said.74 He also made a point of going to see a diamond mine and, as a result of what he saw of conditions there, declined to provide a diamond engagement ring when he finalised arrangements with Euphan on his return.75
Geoff continued to play rugby for the university club until 1930, and in 1929 he was noted by the Canterbury College Review as 'a much-needed leader in the forwards, who occasionally took the ball the length of the field in fine dribbling rushes';76 but there are more references in the student publications of the time to his prowess in putting the shot, for which he was awarded a blue in 1928, and (less successfully) in throwing the hammer. As he became more heavily involved in other things he withdrew from active participation in team sports, but he continued to contribute to student life in physical as well as intellectual ways. One of his contemporaries remembered an incident at the end of a college ball, when one student and his partner were departing in a Baby Austin. 'As they entered the car, Geoff and another of similar massive build stood towards the back of the small car and, putting their fingers under the rear mudguards, very gently lifted the rear wheels clear of the ground. The driver started the car, and with a final "good night" put it into low gear. It didn't move. He tried all his gears, 77
Geoff 's mana as an All Black, in the days when rugby held the winter stage almost on its own, was high, and years later people spoke in awe of his having locked the scrum for 10 South African matches in a row. He was not one of the all-time greats like his fellow tourist 78
The All Black experience was important to Geoff, and it retained its importance in his private life. From most quarters it brought well-merited respect, but unfortunately Geoff was too sensitive to the kinds of sneers which come from those who cannot abide the spectacle of excellence in physical achievement (and who, in other contexts, are only too willing to hold forth about the 'tall poppy syndrome'). Since he tended to perceive this kind of attitude in some types of academics and in marginal intellectuals, and since he found it difficult to let the dogs bark while the caravan moved on, his relations with institutions like universities were never as easy as they should have been in his later career. His daughter Judith thought that, in his heart of hearts, he loved the life of the university, 'the community of fellows, students, thinkers, planners',79 and with more inner self-confidence this major experience of his early life could have given him much more unalloyed pleasure than it did.
As a full-time student in 1929, Geoff came increasingly under the influence, and the notice, of
Geoff passed French I, history I, philosophy II, and education III in the 1929 examinations and was the University of New Zealand senior scholar in education. He also qualified for the diploma in social science.80 He graduated BA in May 1930, together with 81 Geoff accepted the offer and was appointed by 82
To this appointment Geoff brought the background and achievements of his first 27 years. Shelley had made a good choice for his own immediate purposes, but he could not have foreseen its long-term consequences for New Zealand society.
Chapter3
Shelley's Rural Schemes
Shelley was strongly influenced by an older man in the education department at Manchester, Joseph John Findlay. Findlay, in turn, had been influenced by such thinkers as Dewey, Pestalozzi, Froebel, and Rein, and by unusually (for the time) close contacts with European educationalists. In particular, Findlay considered that teaching should be child-centred and that teachers should be professionally trained after first acquiring a liberal education, which in the conditions of the time meant attendance at a secondary school until at least the age of 16. He disapproved of the pupilteacher or apprenticeship way of entering the profession, which depended too much on the gamble that the supervising teacher was capable of guiding a young and immature mind. And he laid great stress on the importance of the personal qualities that teachers acquired or developed during their learning and training years. 'The teacher is, above all,' he said, 'a personal influence, and it is through that influence, far more than by the indirect results of school lessons, that he achieves his supreme success.'1
This was the background to the man who burst upon the Canterbury scene in 1920, but an additional factor which caused him to make such an impact there (and which until the publication of Ian Carter's biography 2
Taken on their own, Shelley's lectures were by no means perfect, according to Beeby, but he was the kind of teacher who could help students to see unity and pattern in the scattered fragments of their learning. 'The shadows in Plato's cave came alive. The adolescent "savages" undergoing initiation ceremonies in Fraser's [i.e. Frazer's] Golden Bough became people like ourselves, with our problems and their solutions.'3
Geoff Alley's memories of Shelley were similar to Beeby's, but he added that 'There was a great deal more to 4 And again: 'He wasn't just a talker, a reader, an actor. He was a doer. His craftsmanship – his ability to work with his hands was quite notable.'5 Beeby's and Alley's comments are those of admirers; others, who did not like Shelley's flamboyant style, were equally vehement.
When Shelley was appointed to his chair, the 6
Among other things, Shelley became involved in the work of the Workers' Educational Association. A branch of the WEA had been established in Christchurch in 1915, with 7
In October 1920 the 8
So Shelley, a very urban man with no taste for the rural, decided to devote himself to working for rural people. Condliffe had in fact started on work in this area, which had been a requirement of the Carnegie Corporation when it made its grant in 1918, but he was undoubtedly pleased to hand it over to his uneasy partner. Shelley, in his turn, quickly became aware of what Beeby has called 'the barren intellectual life led by many intelligent men and women in rural areas, where books were scarce, libraries were few and of poor quality, and contact with the whole world of the arts was negligible for all but the wealthy'.9
Shelley wanted especially to bring to country folk the high culture of literature and the arts which he was enthusiastically promoting in lectures and dramatic performances in Christchurch, but there were serious logistical problems in getting materials for study and enjoyment to widely scattered small rural groups. The first solution to these problems to spring from his fertile brain was the box scheme, which became in due course 'the famous Box Scheme' and was copied in other centres. Put into operation after Shelley took over the direction of tutorial classes when Condliffe left Canterbury in 1925, it was described by him in the 1925–26 annual report of the Christchurch WEA as follows:
Each week a box, containing lecture notes, text books, prints and gramophone records is despatched from the Centre to a study group. The group retains the box for one week, then forwards it to the next group, and so on until the box has done the round of seven groups. In order that the scheme should be a success, the size of the study group should not be larger than twenty students. The students must appoint their own leader
and secretary, and should meet in a private residence or small public room. A gramophone is essential as the subject studied in the first year was 'The 19th century in Art, Music and Literature.' The lecture notes must be distributed by the leader to the students; who should read them at home and come to the meeting prepared to ask questions or discuss any part of the lecture. 10
In making this report, Shelley was in fact telling the district council what he had already done in its name, and it is worth noting that the organisation and administration of the box scheme was centred at the college, taking up an increasing proportion of the time of the WEA's tutororganiser, John Johnson, who was appointed in 1926, and not at Trades Hall. Even so early in his régime Shelley was rather high-handed in his dealings with the district council. All the same, the scheme was a great success, and it continued to be used and admired for many years to come. It did, however, have weaknesses. While it overcame the problems of transport and the shortage of tutors, it also, as Carter has pointed out, tended to be captured by people who were not the workers of the WEA's title: 'its principal beneficiaries rural schoolteachers marooned in remote districts'.11 And D.O.W. Hall, in his history of New Zealand adult education, said that 'it never occurred to anybody that it could be destructive of educational standards in the hands of groups ill-equipped to make a subject come alive for themselves'.12
Hall's comment ignores the fact that Shelley himself seems to have taken the point. Shelley's next move was to think up a way of transporting both study materials and a tutor to the classes in a specially equipped vehicle. Unlike the box scheme, this would require a difficult amount of additional finance, but it would enable the WEA, or Shelley himself, to keep closer tabs on the way classes were conducted.
Shelley outlined his new scheme to the tutorial class committee in February 1928.13 Taking advantage of the recent resignation of the South Canterbury tutor, H.G. (Harold) Miller, who had been appointed Librarian of Victoria University College, he proposed that Miller should be replaced by a travelling tutor who would visit classes, using a motor car adapted for the purpose of carrying library books and a lantern and for providing sleeping accommodation. A gramophone and reproductions of paintings were also fitted into the plans. 'By these means,' he said, 'he would be able to visit a larger number of classes, organise classes in small townships, take an occasional lecture at the classes, deliver library books, and give advice on general educational matters.' Rather unfortunately he added, 'He need not be highly qualified academically', but this was probably intended to justify the attractively low salary he suggested, £300 to £350 per annum.
How did Shelley develop this idea? Carter points out that 14 The idea of a travelling library was by no means a new one,15 but Shelley was not particularly concerned about libraries as such. Neither of these proposals seems to have led directly to his new proposal. Some other spark was necessary, and this seems to have been provided by a book which 16 This was Parnassus on Wheels, published in the
Parnassus on Wheels is a story of R. Mifflin, once a schoolteacher down in Maryland but now a bookseller travelling around rural New England in a horse-drawn wagon, 'a queer wagon, shaped like a van'. It is told by a woman who joined his enterprise and, very satisfactorily, ended up marrying him. Mifflin's philosophy is that 'the man that's got a few good books on his shelf is making his wife happy, giving his children a square deal, and he's likely to be a better citizen himself '. 'The mandarins of culture,' he says, 'what do they do to teach the common folk to read? It's no good writing down lists of books for farmers and compiling five-foot shelves; you've got to go out and visit the people yourself – take the books to them, talk to the teachers and bully the editors of country newspapers and tell the children stories – and then little by little you begin to get good books circulating in the veins of the nation.' The sides of the van could be raised like flaps, revealing shelves standing above shelves, all of them full of books both old and new, and inside there were cooking, sleeping, and storage facilities, a table, and even a wicker chair – and more bookshelves. It was drawn by Peg, 'one of the fattest white horses I ever saw'. Who could not be enthused by Mifflin's Travelling Parnassus?
A deputation from the WEA put its proposal to the Progress League and reported in May 1928 that it had been received sympathetically, and that its request had been referred to the league's agricultural committee for a report.17 This was a dead end, though; the Progress League did not play. But meantime, another player had appeared on the scene. The Carnegie Corporation of New York was about to increase its support to what it called 'the southern Dominions'.
After its creation in 1911, the Carnegie Corporation (to be distinguished from the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust), which was dedicated to helping the British dominions and colonies, provided funding for library buildings, 18 In 1917 this form of grant was discontinued after an adviser recommended that the corporation would do better to assist in the building up of educational infrastructures and local expertise. As we have seen, it helped the New Zealand WEA from 1918, but further applications of the change of policy had to await the appointment as president of the corporation of 19 Keppel was the son of a successful art dealer and was closely associated with
In 1927 the corporation decided to investigate the situation in the dominions in order to establish a programme of assistance which might produce lasting benefits. As a starter, as far as New Zealand was concerned, it granted $5000 to the University of New Zealand for WEA tutorial classes, but its most important initial action was to send a high-ranking emissary to New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa to assess the situation on the ground and recommend a plan of action. This was
Russell was in New Zealand from the end of February until the end of March 1928, when he departed for Australia. He spent two days, 8 and 9 March, in Christchurch. The importance with which his visit was regarded is indicated by a letter which the rector of 20 Hight subsequently met Russell, together with Shelley and J.E. Purchase, principal of the training college, and reported to the chairman of the board of governors on 12 March that he believed the Carnegie Corporation would be prepared to consider applications in respect of one or more of six matters: books and journals on topics in which it was especially interested; libraries; occasional fellowships to persons with outstanding qualities; extension work; a loan fund to subsidise students, especially from country areas; and a subsidy to the Students' Union.21 He suggested that moves should be made to convene an inter-collegiate conference in order to co-ordinate requests, and various meetings and discussions were held between the colleges and the University of New Zealand, but in fact none of those taking part quite
In his letter to the chairman of the board of governors, Hight said this of extension work: 'Extension Work. Especially in the country, to bring to the rural districts more of the advantages of higher education in Home Science, cultural subjects, and subjects fundamental to their activities. Dr Russell was very keenly interested in, and impressed by,
Russell pulled no punches in his confidential report on his observations in New Zealand and Australia. His comment on
Good plant on ample ground in a little bit of Old England. Arts College, Engineering School, and Forestry School with two high schools, secondary art school, museum and public library as adjuncts – these latter supported by old endowments or special Government grants. The only University College with permanent head – now
Professor James Hight , who has been in England for a year as exchange professor. Visited Columbia on way home in November last. Engineering equipment apparently exceptionally good for small resources. College library very poor – greatly in need of reference and standard works. Public library fairly good, but badly worn. Each College department gets £5 a year for books.Students about 1200 – two-thirds on part time in classes after 4 p.m.22
This was somewhat more favourable than his comment on
Russell met a gathering of school inspectors in Wellington and was impressed by them, and he was particularly interested in the WEA in each centre, giving details of Shelley's box scheme ('Without Shelley, such results could not be expected') and mentioning Shelley's plans for 'a circulating library' and visits to study groups. In his general observations he said: 'The University of New Zealand is a paper organization designed to keep the Colleges in line … Its sole educational function is to hold examinations and grant degrees … All papers for honors (M.A. degree) are sent to England and read by English examiners, apparently because the Colleges 23
Russell's final suggestion in his written report was 'that any grants to New Zealand and Australia for 1928–29 be for travel, books, journals, etc, but that thereafter a new policy be instituted with a view to meeting permanent needs. These needs I shall be prepared to discuss at length when I return.'24
After his return to New York, Russell discussed his ideas with Keppel on 30 October 1928. In addition to Shelley's plans for a travelling tutor, he had been impressed by the plans of Otago's Professor Ann G. Strong for home science extension work in rural areas, and he recommended that Shelley's and Strong's projects both be supported. It is not clear whether, at this stage, he thought they should be administered as a single, joint operation, but in accepting the recommendation the corporation established a local advisory committee to oversee both. This committee was convened by
The corporation's decision was that over a five-year period £1500 a year should be paid to Otago and £500 a year to Canterbury for what it called 'The Travelling Library and Home Science Project'.25 It was hoped that these amounts would attract a government subsidy. The decision was conveyed to Allen by Keppel in April 1929,26 though Allen had had prior information of the likely outcome. The northern colleges and the University of New Zealand, which were about to join with Canterbury and Otago in preparing a joint application, were infuriated and made some rather intemperate statements about their southern colleagues' conduct, but in fact none of them, northern or southern, had understood how the Carnegie Corporation, under Keppel's guidance, set about allocating the large sums of money at its disposal. It did not run a lolly-scramble.
In the initial stages of its involvement in any of the communities it became interested in, the corporation's policy was to send someone of some standing to spy out the land and discuss various projects and long-term programmes which might be worthy of support. In choosing Russell to visit the southern dominions, it had picked a man with very high standing, and one, moreover, who was a good friend of Keppel's and in whose judgement 27 In September 1928 28 Studholme was then invited to visit Keppel in New York, and it was he who recommended the amounts of the grants to Otago and Canterbury.29
The corporation's next step was to form a local group, independently of institutional hierarchies, and to use that group for advice and as a link with bodies to which grants might be made; in the present case, the group was the one which was convened by Allen. Grants would then be made for a limited period, and it was expected that efforts would be made by local interests to take over full control after the period of pump-priming. Expert advisers would be sent to help when necessary, and suitable local people would be given assistance to gain experience and training in the 30 In 1929 the initial stages of a programme of this kind for New Zealand were set in place with respect to rural adult education, but Russell had also mapped out, in his own mind and in Keppel's, a wider programme of which this was a beginning. The Carnegie Corporation had arrived in New Zealand.
If the Carnegie Corporation's modus operandi was not fully understood in New Zealand, there was also confusion in Christchurch over the terms and conditions governing the grant for the travelling library, which was not simply a library project but was an extension of an existing scheme for taking the WEA to rural areas.
When Allen informed Otago and Canterbury of the special Carnegie grants he referred to the Canterbury one as being 'to 31 Intonation and stress would no doubt have decided which element was given priority in a reading of his letter. Five months elapsed before the college informed the WEA of the grant, when Hight, as chairman of the tutorial class committee, reported to the committee 'that the Carnegie Corporation had granted the College £500 per annum for five years for special W.E.A. work'. Shelley then 'stated that he intended to use these funds for his scheme without the necessity of consulting the Committee. He would however consult the chairman.'32
This did not satisfy the secretary of the district council, George Manning, who said 'that the W.E.A. District Council as the parent body of W.E.A. work should be informed on all W.E.A. work in the Province'. Shelley was asked to report on his scheme, 'so that the W.E.A. delegates may report to the District Council'. After a reminder on 12 December33 he produced a memorandum, 'Proposals re University Extension for Submission to the Carnegie Corporation', which was endorsed by the district council on 19 December, 'after a good discussion on the need of the District Council being acquainted with all proposals for extending W.E.A. work'.34
In this memorandum, which was originally written shortly after Russell's visit,35 Shelley expanded the proposal that he had put up in February 1928:
The Scheme is briefly:- the extension of the Box Scheme which I inaugurated two and a half years ago – to develop study groups in small country places, working from notes, gramophone records, portfolios of prints, plays, and books – this scheme has proved very successful indeed, and courses dealing with 'Nineteenth Century Music, Art & Literature', 'Eighteenth Century Music, etc', 'Contemporary Music, etc' and 'Experimental Psychology' are at present being circulated – each course consisting of about 24 weeks' work. This scheme needs developing by the circles being visited by a tutor, who will organise further circles in more remote places. The proposal is to fit up a motor car as a travelling library, lanterns, gramophone, wireless – to be in charge of the tutor who will visit each place in his circuit regularly (say once a fortnight) and generally be a connecting link between the main centre and the countryside.
Shelley had discussed his plans with Strong and put it forward as his half of a joint proposal under which the Canterbury car (and 'Man Tutor')
Because of Shelley's aversion to keeping records, and because, within the Carnegie Corporation, so much was decided in conversations between trusting associates, there is no way of telling whether Shelley had been made aware of the corporation's emphasis on the importance of supporting promising individuals rather than formal institutions, but there is no doubt that he was determined not to lose control of what was going to be his crowning achievement in the field of rural adult education. Among other things, he would have seen the appointment of a suitable tutor as being crucial to its success.
In July 1929 John Johnson, who probably knew something of what was going on because of his proximity to Shelley's office, reported on his workload, which had been exacerbated by there being no replacement for Miller in South Canterbury, and suggested separating tutorial class work from the box work in 1930, using the Carnegie £500 to put someone in charge of the box scheme so that he could concentrate on tutorial work. 'From my knowledge of the country districts,' he said, 'I do not think that the time is ripe yet for an extended move forward on new lines; but if we continued quietly what we are at present doing … we are laying a good foundation for something bigger eventually in the years to come, when we shall know just what to give the people and just how to present it'.36 Johnson probably put himself out of the running by making this comment, but in any case his personality was more suited to the sterling work he was doing with the box scheme. Nevertheless, as the new scheme unfolded there were those on the district council who thought that he should have the job.
37 Maybe. Perhaps Shelley was looking at all possibilities and perhaps several others were approached too. What is certain is that Shelley made up his mind rather late in the year. His recommendation that Alley be appointed went to the college committee of 38 the same day that two members of the district council tried unsuccessfully to promote a recommendation in favour of Johnson.39
In November 1929, when matters were coming to a head, Johnson, quite reasonably, reported again to the tutorial class committee on the amount of work he was trying to cope with and said, 'I should also like to know my position and duties in relation to the new Carnegie scheme.'40 His immediate problems were finally sorted out on 19 December, when 41
The chronology of these events in 1929 is worth contemplating:
|
11 April | Keppel informed Allen of funding being granted by the Carnegie Corporation. | |
31 May | Allen informed Canterbury and Otago registrars of grants. | |
22 July | Johnson's proposals for use of funds. | |
29 October | Hight informed tutorial class committee; Shelley said he would go it alone. | |
November | Johnson asked about his role. | |
12 December | Tutorial class committee asked for copy of scheme. | |
17 December | Copy of scheme to district council of WEA. | |
17 December | Shelley recommended Alley's appointment as tutor, to college committee. | |
19 December | Tutorial class committee settled Johnson's role. | |
20 December | Alley's appointment approved by college board of governors. | 42
There are many methods of getting one's way. This was Shelley's method.
Alley was a young, but not too young, man, handsome and with a commanding presence. He had had farming experience and was a recent All Black; many a country lad would have had his portrait in his cigarette card collection. He had a good general education and was about to complete his BA and be named senior scholar in education. Shelley had several outstanding students in his entourage and could no doubt have entrusted his scheme to any of them, but it is difficult to think of another who would so well have fitted the criteria for working with country people.
Chapter4
Parnassus on Wheels
Alley's letter of appointment, signed by his obedient servant the Registrar of Canterbury College, said: 'You will be required to act under the Director of Extension Work, 1 At the same time the registrar wrote to Shelley saying that the appointment would date from 1 January 1930, and adding that approval had been given for the purchase and adaptation of a car at an approximate cost of £116.2
Even as far back as 1930, nothing very state-of-the-art could be got for £116, but the stark fact was that, after allowing for what was then a good salary for a recent graduate, the initial book stock and equipment, and annual running expenses, very little was left from a budget of £1000 (including the government's matching subsidy). A Ford delivery van was bought for £30, and £90 was spent on its adaptation. This included the installation of shelving and the provision of a hinged opening on one side, much like Mifflin's Travelling Parnassus. The Ford was not a good buy – it was underpowered and it cost a lot to maintain – but at least it was ready for the road by 25 March 1930. It was replaced in 1933 by a new van built on a Morris commercial chassis, still underpowered but better than the Ford. As Alley said, a great deal of valuable information was learned from the experience of using these vehicles, but it was learned the hard way.3
The other major item of expenditure in 1930 was £236 for 1004 books. Materials such as gramophone records were borrowed from the box scheme, as were box scheme programmes for those groups which wished to have
Alley reported on the first two years of his work in his MA thesis, which he called 'An Experiment in Rural Adult Education'.4 It is important to remember that it was not originally conceived as a library operation, but as an exploration of ways in which adult education could be taken to rural areas. Twenty-six centres were selected for attention, of which only 13 had libraries – and of these only three, according to Alley, 'could be said to be alive and serving any cultural purpose'.5 Some were visited for evening meetings held by the tutor, who used all the kinds of material at his disposal, including books, reproductions, original paintings, and lecture notes. In other centres there were groups which met regularly under a local leader using box scheme material, and which were visited by the car library; and a third lot had only the car library visits. As the experiment proceeded, attempts were also made to reach participants through radio talks, under the watchful eye of the New Zealand Broadcasting Board, which insisted that controversial matters be avoided.6
Nevertheless, the library element of the experiment was crucial to its operation. The Carnegie Corporation, in a review of its grants for library interests, 1911–35, included it under this heading as well as pointing out that the home science project had many library implications.7 Alley himself, who had not previously been involved in library work, found that the lending of books from his small stock, which included a supplementary loan from the
In his thesis Alley commented on his experience with his group in Hororata. 'There were definitely two types of borrower here,' he wrote, 'one the villager who read lighter travel or novels, and the other the bookhungry sheep-farmer who read anything and everything, from biology to the philosophy of art. It would be a mistake to focus the Car Scheme on either of the two, but that course is not necessary, for both have been served from the same library.'8 Elsewhere in the thesis he wrote: 'Just how difficult and complex the calling of librarian can be has been realised by the writer in the last two years. To discover the book needs and wishes, and stimulate them if they were dormant, of nearly 500 people, is for one person an impossible task in sixteen months, even under favourable conditions. To have the right books on the shelves of the library, to be continually looking for additional books of the kind needed, to know something of the 1600 books in stock, all these taken together are tasks that can never be finished, and never done well enough.'9
In his report on his work in 1932, Alley said that he hoped that in 1933 the car scheme would, in addition to continuing the work of previous 10 In 1933 he suggested that 'Perhaps the most important need in our time is a re-orientation of the common view of education, which looks upon that process as a matter of a year or two spent at school, instead of as a process of life itself. When the concept of education has become widened and deepened according to the latter view, the place in the rural community of institutions like the C.A.R. scheme will be permanent, and not until then.'11 And again, in the following year: 'The library work of the Car Scheme has developed to a point where a valuable service has been given to many bookless communities. The knowledge of the reading tastes and habits of hundreds of people, this too, must be counted as something of great value in any future work.'12
These were the thoughts of one who was imbued with the 1930s beliefs in the value of the education, in the most appropriate form, of every individual in producing what would now be called a public good, and in the importance of thriving rural communities, supported by society as a whole for its own good. On a personal and practical level, Alley also made a lasting impact: even half a century later the librarian in charge of the Christchurch office of the 13
Alley's thesis was sent for assessment to Shelley's old mentor, 14 Having completed study for philosophy III as a prerequisite, Alley graduated MA with first-class honours in May 1932.
Another who graduated MA with first-class honours at the same time was 15 dealt with work he had done in Oxford, North Canterbury, 'to find out what subjects could be taken in a typical rural community and how they could best be taught with a view to enhancing country life'. Somerset's teaching career had paralleled Gwen Alley's, except that after a crippling attack of ankylosing spondylitis (a rheumatic condition of the spine) he had had to fight his way back on to a career path. He and Gwen both taught in Oxford in the 1920s, and they married on 15 January 1930.
Later in the same year, on 11 December, Geoffrey Alley and Euphan Jamieson were married in the Church of the Epiphany, Gebbies Valley (parish of St Andrews, Little River).16 The ceremony was conducted by 17 After a break in Akaroa, the young couple took up residence in the Jung at Westcote, and on 22 December 1931 a daughter, 18
Alley still played rugby for the university club in 1930,19 but he was by then phasing himself out and taking up golf with enthusiasm. He did, however, write a 180-page account of the British rugby tour of New Zealand which took place that year, an unusually literate and somewhat quirky contribution to the literature of the game.20 In an historical introduction he suggested that New Zealand had won her peculiar greatness in rugby because of a coincidence, which was that her development as a country took place along with her adoption of a national game, which, he implied, made our players liable to experiment. In dealing with the 1905 tour of Britain he referred, of course, to 'the match with Wales, forever to appear in the official records as Wales 3, New Zealand 0, in spite of that try by Deans, [which] will always be remembered in New Zealand, but, we hope, with the best feeling possible for an honest mistake by the referee'.
In his general comments on the tour Alley wrote: 'What struck anybody with experience of the qualities of South African forward play was the gentler methods of the British packmen, that is generally speaking … Had there been more genuine forward play on the tour, we should have had another demonstration of the failings and excellencies of the two-three-two scrum, but as it was, the New Zealand scrum was consistently able to prove itself better than the three-two-three of the tourists.' And there is a paragraph on 'The Charm of Golf ': 'There is probably much more in golf than in Rugby, but there is so much in it that it may drain enthusiasm for less imaginative but more stern tasks such as keeping a pack of New Zealand forwards out of mischief.' For the record, New Zealand won three of the four tests on this tour, scoring 87 points to 40.21
Alley was introduced to the royal and ancient game of golf by his Scottish friend Donald Grant, and for several years devoted himself to it with the intensity required to place an Alley at the top of any endeavour. Stories are told of his taking out his clubs in spare moments to practice 22 He formalised his golfing status on 17 March 1933 when he was accepted as a Russley member of the Hagley Golf Club, playing at the Russley course which had been laid out in 1928 to take the overflow from the popular Hagley course, and was still, until the end of 1934, under Hagley control. He achieved a handicap of four and in 1934 was the Russley senior champion. He then disappeared from the club's records.23
Rewi returned to New Zealand for a short trip in 1932 with his adopted Chinese son, Alan, and stayed at Westcote. Geoff was at that time a member of the New Zealand branch of the Institute of Pacific Relations, and the two of them prepared a proposal for a study of the Chinese in New Zealand, which they submitted to the institute's national council. The council turned it down because of lack of funds,24 but it surfaced in 1938 as an article in the China Journal, consisting of a brief account of the gold-rush immigrants and (it must be said) a fairly complacent report on the situation of Chinese in New Zealand in the 1930s.25
In 1934 the New Zealand Council for Educational Research was established with an initial grant from the Carnegie Corporation of $US70,000 for five years for a programme of research, plus $US3000 per annum for administration.26 Alley applied for its post of executive officer, supported by a testimonial from 27 Those who have had experience of dealing with testimonials and referees' reports will recognise the slight warning underlying the warmth; the job went to
While the car scheme was proceeding according to plan, Shelley's problems with the WEA, or the WEA's with him, did not go away so easily. In the introduction to his thesis Alley said: 'This scheme was to embody new features, new conceptions, and was to operate independently of any existing institution for adult education, so that it might discover for itself the best form of organisation in every community that was visited.' And again, he said that the director of the WEA sought to put into operation not an extension of the WEA, or an extension of the university college in which he held a position, but a scheme which considered first the rural community and the individual in the community. And again: 'The attitude of the W.E.A. is definitely a narrower one, seeing society from inside its own institution, and seeking to extend itself … It appears to the writer 28
Ian Carter, in quoting these passages, calls Alley 'Shelley's mouthpiece',29 which is a bit unfair, since Alley was not a party to the negotiations which led to the establishment of the car scheme, and probably was not fully aware of the passions that had been aroused. All the same, the fact that he wrote in this way is a pretty clear indication of the way in which Shelley was talking, not always to those who would be discreet enough not to pass his comments on. Shelley might well have been right in his view of how best to achieve success with the car scheme, but it was a fact that the WEA had been named by the Carnegie Corporation in such a way as to expect to be treated as, at least, a partner in it. And Shelley's attitude was not a good example to a young graduate.
It is not surprising, therefore, that ruffled feathers stayed ruffled, or that George Manning, the secretary of the WEA, had periodic attacks of apoplexy when the car scheme came up for discussion. In the course of a series of meetings of the tutorial class committee and the district council of the WEA early in 1930, Manning told the latter on 26 February30 that the tutorial class committee had not been consulted on the appointment, or on the use of the Carnegie fund. The registrar of 31 three of the six members present at this meeting expressed regret that the committee had not been informed earlier, and Shelley made the less than ingratiating comment that he was responsible, in this matter, to the board of governors of 32 Feelings escalated until a meeting of the district council on 27 March asked that Shelley explain himself and agree to the money being controlled by the tutorial class committee, or else resign as director.33
Damage control then swung into action and at a meeting of the tutorial class committee on 11 April the chairman (Hight) 'explained that 34 Manning had written a letter from the district council to the tutorial class committee conveying the council's resolution of 27 March, but the file copy is annotated, 'Withheld owing to Prof. Shelley agreeing to terms April 2nd 1930, G.M.'35
Things settled down to some extent after this, apart from a brief but intense tussle over the size of the letters 'WEA' on the side of the van.36 By the end of the year Shelley was making arrangements for a joint meeting of the tutorial class committee and the trustees of the Carnegie grant to 37 Alley ended his interim report for the year, presented at a meeting in November, by saying, 'In conclusion I wish to thank 38 and from then on regular reports were presented to the tutorial class committee.
The papering over of the cracks could not, however, conceal the fact that the cracks indicated some structural failure. Carter reckons that Shelley was deeply hurt by the controversies and that after 1930 he lost interest in the WEA.39 There is no doubt that Manning was equally hurt; it was the people less directly concerned who became reconciled, and Alley would have benefited from being more closely associated with the calm and diplomatic Hight, in the latter's capacity as chairman of the tutorial class committee.
Government subsidies to the WEA, nationwide, were abolished in 1931 as a Depression measure. The association was bailed out by an emergency grant of $US10,000 from the Carnegie Corporation, but it had to operate for several years under severe financial difficulties. The Strong/Shelley project may have been insulated after an approach by Allen to 40 as well as by economies and an improvement in the dollar exchange rate,41 but it is more likely that the Carnegie Corporation helped out. There is no record of any difficulty over the payment of Alley's salary, whereas for a time Johnson was unsure from month to month whether he would be paid.42 Alley was not affected in this way, but when the government imposed a 10 per cent wage and salary cut across the public service as a Depression measure (the first of two such cuts) he wrote to the registrar to draw his attention to 'an apparent injustice', in that it had been applied to his whole salary of £400 per annum, part of which was intended to cover personal expenses, which he reckoned at £50 per annum; he was rewarded by having his salary set at £350 per annum, 'subject to statutory reductions', plus £50 for travelling expenses which were not so subject (a saving, to him, of £5 per annum).43
After receiving reports on the first year's work on the Canterbury and Otago projects, Keppel wrote to Allen saying that he was delighted with the progress that had been made in so short a time: 'They give every evidence 44 This opinion was no doubt included in the briefing of the Carnegie Corporation's next emissary, who arrived in New Zealand towards the end of 1931 to follow up on the effects of Russell's visit and reports. This was Lotus D. Coffman, president of the University of Minnesota, who arrived on 1 November, stayed for two weeks, and dated his confidential report to the corporation 15 December (or, to be more precise, 'December 15, 1931').45
Coffman undertook what must have been a gruelling tour. In the fortnight at his disposal he covered much of the ground that Russell had in 1928, paying particular attention to the university colleges and their libraries, university extension, museums and art galleries, and special institutions like the Institute for the Blind. He even found time to form views on New Zealand's dental health (which admittedly was spectacularly poor at that time) and the
The most immediately effective parts of Coffman's report concerned the need for an educational research institute, and what he called 'the Strong–Shelley project', together with the latter's connection with the WEA.46 In the former case, his comments led to Carnegie funding for the establishment of the New Zealand Council for Educational Research. What we now focus on are the Strong–Shelley project and the WEA.
Coffman was less impressed by the WEA than Russell had been. He observed that it limited its offerings almost entirely to the liberal studies, that it had no interest in vocational branches, and that the term 'workers' in its name was anathema to many farmers. 'There is no disposition, however,' he said, 'on the part of the leaders in the Workers' Education Association to change the name or to extend the offerings. They are satisfied with what they have done and with what they are doing. It appears to me that they were entirely too much satisfied.' One wonders how he could have formed such a definite conclusion in so short a time. Nevertheless, he recommended additional funding while a survey of the situation regarding the WEA and kindred organisations like the 47
'The Strong–Shelley project,' Coffman wrote, 'is succeeding admirably. Dean A.G. Strong and 48
Coffman, naturally, met the Carnegie advisory committee headed by
Keppel wrote to Allen over a year later, on 14 March 1933, to ask for a plan along the lines suggested by Coffman. Allen consulted Studholme, Francis, Strong and Shelley, and in August sent a request for a new fiveyear grant, on the following terms: (a) that the present trustees, together with Strong, and Shelley, be an advisory committee to recommend to the corporation how any money grants should be allocated between the two university colleges and the work to be undertaken; (b) that if any additional grant was made, power to handle it should be placed in the hands of the committee; and (c) that all appointments to staff should be made by the university college council concerned on the recommendation of the committee.49
Keppel wrote to Allen on 20 April 1934, endorsing the plan that had been set out in Allen's letter and announcing that the Carnegie board of trustees had appropriated the sum of $US52,000 'in support of the travelling library and home science project in New Zealand being conducted in connection with 50
Allen informed the two colleges of the renewed grant and the terms on which it had been made,51 and 52 Thus was born the Association for Country Education which would take the project into 1935 and beyond.
All of this had been done without any consultation with the WEA. Manning was naturally outraged. When he asked the registrar of
that the organisation of this new scheme has been going on since August 23rd, 1933. In order that the Carnegie Advisory Committee should be able to perform its new function of controlling the scheme it was advisable to secure some persons with educational qualifications on the Committee and, if possible, someone in touch with Adult Education, therefore Dr. Hight was suggested and a member from
Otago University … The correspondence indicates that the Carnegie Advisory Committee is the final authority for the new scheme, and that all appointments, methods of work, new activities, must be also submitted to it before being put into operation. All reports must be submitted to it…. Prof. Strong and Prof. Shelley are both appointed advisors which may be an indication that they have been advising all along…. In all this development the W.E.A., or the Tutorial Class Committee which directs the Adult Education Movement in this Province were not consulted, asked for advice or for their co-operation.
The Carnegie advisory committee had been rather naïvely hoping that the WEA would co-operate in the new scheme, but at this meeting the Executive Committee of the WEA resolved: 'That the Executive disassociate itself from any scheme which has been drawn up by an outside body and we demand that the designation of the letters W.E.A. be removed from any such scheme.'53
This whole episode leaves an unfortunate impression, regardless of the advantages or disadvantages of the two ways of handling the Carnegie project. George Manning, the secretary of the Canterbury WEA, was a well-respected citizen who was later a popular mayor of Christchurch; he should have been treated with more respect. Shelley, whose hand can be seen in the sequence of events, might have been an inspirational leader of those who did his will, but he was obviously seriously deficient in basic
As far as one can tell, Alley was not involved in these shenanigans. He was out in the field, doing the work that Shelley had made it possible for him to do, and his later memories of Shelley were positive. 'It's Shelley as a sower of seeds that we must remember,' he said, looking back in old age; 'I don't think that he knew very much about the so-called mechanics of library service. I'm sure he didn't…. But Shelley's view about books and the idea of meaning through communication all helped him in the ideas that came to the surface when the scheme in Canterbury began.'54
Alley's increasing focus on the library side of his work has already been seen. As early as in his report for 1932 he noted that all three of his methods, the issue of good books of all kinds, the introduction of the WEA box scheme to groups, and the holding of fortnightly meetings in centres visited by the tutor, had given good results, but that the library work was the most satisfying.55 Alley was still working in a system that was apart from the institutional library field, but the logic of events was carrying him towards it.
Chapter5
The Library World
European New Zealand was bookish from the start. Athenaeums and mechanics' institutes, with their library collections, were among the first focal points of the planned settlements, and the capitalists who were encouraged to bring their money with them also brought educational traditions and habits which supported those of the earnest Victorian working classes who were intended to be the solid and productive toilers of the transplanted society.
Several of the provincial governments, after they were established in 1852, provided varying degrees of financial aid to small libraries in scattered communities. The central government's Municipal Corporations Act 1867 empowered boroughs to establish public libraries to which admission should be free to the public, but was silent on the matter of the free lending of books which was an important feature of British legislation from 1850 on. It did not cover the matter of libraries outside municipal boundaries.1
The abolition of the provinces in 1876 was a disaster for many forms of public service, including libraries. There may well have been good reasons for doing away with their mini-parliaments and concentrating public works and other developments under central control, but the provinces, which could still have been suitable as administrative areas for local government and local services, were broken up, on the one hand into municipalities which were looked upon as big brothers by their country cousins, and on the other into a plethora of counties which were hardly strong enough financially to look after their roads, let alone any kind of educational function. The inevitable result was to centralise in Wellington many functions which should have been handled by strong local authorities, to foster the creation of numerous ad hoc bodies to handle such services as education and hospitals, and to create vested interests which discouraged the kind of co-operation which might have overcome the administrative problems of small, independent units. In 1940, by which time the original 63 counties had become 129, 2
Most boroughs, including those designated as cities, eventually took advantage of their ability to establish public libraries, but almost all of them required a subscription to be paid for borrowing privileges, which had the effect of restricting membership and therefore restricting the range of books which could justifiably be held in them; this in turn further restricted the advantages of membership. Counties were permitted by the Counties Act 1876 to establish or aid a number of cultural enterprises, including libraries, but their financial resources, in most cases, were not equal to the task. The central government, under the Public Libraries Subsidies Act 1877, took over the role of assistance to libraries in scattered communities and carried it out, with lapses when economic conditions were unfavourable, until 1929, in which year the vote of £3000 was split among 338 libraries. To qualify for the subsidy, libraries were required to charge members a subscription of at least five shillings a year for borrowing rights. The subscription system, which had no parallel in Britain, was therefore firmly entrenched. The subsidy, small though it was, was abolished in 1930 as a Depression measure.
In any case, the subsidy was a mere gesture in a situation which called for a more systematic approach. The libraries which received it were, in the main, small private or semi-private organisations which operated quite independently of each other. To be effective they needed to be units in larger systems, with a wide range of resources available to them which could be called upon by such mechanisms as the regular circulation of stock or the ready availability of books on request. Systems of this kind could have been developed by large local body units, but these did not exist in rural areas, and co-operation between municipalities and counties, based on goodwill without the backing of legislation, was always very hard to achieve. Much has been made at times of the quality of the books which survived from many of the small rural libraries, but their survival, in good condition, is an indication that they were not greatly used. As part of the stock of larger systems they would have been read by many more people, in many cases to destruction, and the distribution points, the small rural libraries, would have seen a much wider range of them.
By 1930 there were public libraries of a moderate but reasonable standard in most municipalities in New Zealand, all except a very few of them under-used and operating well below their potential because of the inhibitions of the subscription system. Of other types of libraries there were very few of any consequence. The General Assembly Library was well established and was used by others besides politicians; the Alexander Turnbull Library was the chief among a small group of libraries created by benefactors but yet to be developed; academic and research libraries were
For 20 years at least, however, the problems of New Zealand libraries had been attracting the attention of a few far-sighted people. In 1910 the 3 He took as his theme this introduction to a pamphlet on the working of the travelling library system in the American state of Iowa:
No thoughtful man can question that it is a supreme concern to provide for our people the best of the literature which inspires and builds character, and of the literature of knowledge which informs and builds up prosperity. This can be done effectively and economically only through free public libraries. A limited number of people can buy or hire their books, but experience has proved that unless knowledge is as free as air or water it is fearfully handicapped, and the State cannot afford to allow even the smallest obstacle to remain between any of its citizens and their desire for either inspiration or information.
Cohen then described the operation of travelling libraries which then operated in 25 American states, and those of South Australia, where the idea had been conceived nearly 50 years earlier. 'The underlying principle of the Travelling Library,' he said, 'is that the beneficent influence of wholesome literature shall extend to the four corners of the land – that it shall operate as does the national system of education – and shall be supported out of the funds of the State for exactly the same reason.' The government, which was urged to adopt Cohen's ideas, was unimpressed, but the paper is one which is as cogent and inspiring to this day as it was then; and other resolutions from the first three conferences of the Libraries Association, on children's libraries, on a library commission (to
The Libraries Association of New Zealand was revived in 1926, again on the initiative of the 4 but in matters of long-term planning, even scheming, on a national scale, Barr stood out head and shoulders above the others, as Alley has said5 – despite his physical stature (a little under five feet). The General Assembly Library was represented at the 1926 conference by its librarian,
In a far-ranging address at the 1926 conference of the Libraries Association, Barr drew attention to the virtual absence of library service to rural areas in New Zealand and described solutions which had been found to similar problems in various American states, in the 6 He enlarged on this suggestion, with details of ways and means, in another address at the 1930 conference, when he said: 'Everything that can be done to assist the people who live isolated lives to make their conditions better is a duty of the state; and the placing within their reach of good and useful books is one of the most immediate, most necessary and important duties which the state should undertake.'7
When the Carnegie Corporation came on the scene it was, as we have noted, concerned about rural education and rural library services, but its first actions were directed at academic libraries, probably because their problems were simpler. Russell was particularly critical of the state of the libraries in the university colleges and the teachers' training colleges. 'The independent status of College professors,' he said in his 1928 report, 'has led everywhere to the equal division of funds for books regardless of student needs or previous accessions. An allotment of £12 a year is the largest I have heard of, and usually it is less than half that amount.'8 Coffman, in commenting on the same point in 1931, said: 'The librarian buys the books 9
Following Russell's report, the Carnegie Corporation concluded that assistance to college libraries should have a high priority in its programme for New Zealand, but it was concerned that its money should not disappear into an administrative void. Russell had emphasised the need to get New Zealanders to the United States for study and observation in several educational fields and to encourage their employers to treat them thereafter as professionals. In June 1931 each of the university colleges was offered the chance to send a library fellow to the University of Michigan for training, on condition that on return each one became librarian of his or her college with the rank of lecturer. Other conditions concerning library accommodation and the provision of adequate library staffing would, if met, lead to financial assistance for the college libraries for a limited period.10 In making the formal offer, Keppel said that 'the Corporation has turned its attention to the improvement of professional training for librarianship and to aiding in the work of extension and improvement of libraries … to raise standards of library work and professional morale rather than to bestow grants on individual libraries'.11
Three of the colleges took immediate advantage of this offer. 12
These four very different characters brought a youthful exuberance and strong professional standards into the small New Zealand library community of the 1930s. The emphasis of the Michigan school was strongly oriented towards service to library users. Harris's exposure to the bibliographical orientation of the London school added another dimension.
To fill the temporary gap which arose from the delays at Otago, the corporation awarded another fellowship to 13 McIntosh studied at Michigan in 1932, but he also visited many libraries and talked to Carnegie officials in following up ideas which had been discussed at home both for the improvement of the existing services of the
The Carnegie Corporation's programme of assistance to the university college libraries had arisen from Russell's visit in 1928. When Coffman made his visit towards the end of 1931, part of his brief was to assess ways in which the corporation could help in the public library field, though this was not openly heralded; indeed, Norrie in Wellington formed the opinion that Coffman was more interested in the work of the university libraries.14 Nevertheless, the public librarians and the Libraries Association executive then engaged in a round-robin correspondence to decide who should be put forward to receive a library fellowship with a public library focus.
While this correspondence was going on, Barr was offered a Carnegie fellowship.15 He was granted six months' leave by the 16 Barr, for his part, had provided Coffman with copies of his 1926 conference papers,17 which of course indicated much wider interests, and these probably settled the matter in his favour. In any case, Norrie was not really as close to Barr in ability as Coffman thought. The others got their trips in due course – Bell in 1933, Norrie and
Fairly early in the 1930s, therefore, there were stirrings in the New Zealand library world. These were stimulated by well-thought-out Carnegie assistance, but the important factor was that that assistance was being targeted at a small number of talented individuals. Their talents, in
Highly significant also was the appointment as Clerk of the House of Representatives in 1930 of 18 As Clerk of the House, Hall was head of the Legislative Department, of which the
McIntosh was in the 19 which he had discussed in draft with W.W. Bishop, head of the Michigan library school, and 20 he recommended: (1) the amalgamation under one control of the
Milam, when he was asked to comment on an early draft of McIntosh's report, wrote: 'The national library must be made worthy to stand at the head of the system. That involves all those items which you have listed … and, in my opinion, some definite machinery for tying up the national library with the other libraries throughout the country, such as a central lending library department, for lending the unusual book; an advisory department, to aid in the development of regional libraries; and any other 21 The italicised words were underlined by McIntosh when he received Milam's letter.
On the question of rural library service within a national system, McIntosh pointed out in his report that although, in Great Britain and the United States, the county had been found to be the best unit to base it on, New Zealand's counties were not suitable units of government: 'A solution is more likely to be reached by a new loose form of organisation – library districts based upon the co-operation of municipal, county and education units within a certain area.'
While he was drafting his report, McIntosh wrote to Barr to outline his ideas and check that they did not conflict with Barr's. 'But,' he wrote, 'for Heaven's sake and mine, don't let it be known in New Zealand that I am doing it. Dr. Scholefield might suddenly feel insulted and refuse to take any notice of it – I think he will if it does not look as if I am presuming to give him advice.'22 Alas, McIntosh was not tactful enough: Scholefield did feel insulted, and refused to pass the report on to the Clerk of the House; McIntosh did, however, make sure that Barr got a copy of it.
After his return from overseas, McIntosh was offered the position of city librarian in Dunedin, for which he was one among about 50 candidates. He declined it because, as he told Bell (according to Bell), 'Cabinet desired his services in order to re-organize the G.A. Library.'23 Barr reckoned that McIntosh had had his salary increased by about 100 per cent24 – this may or may not be true, but it is certain that someone in Wellington was very anxious that he should stay there; perhaps Hall also got an unauthorised copy of his report.
Dunningham was then appointed to Dunedin. About the same age as McIntosh, he had also been on the staff of the 25 McIntosh remained the slightly cynical but very effective Wellington public servant, many of whose achievements remained strictly anonymous; Dunningham quickly took on the mantle of provincial and regional opposition to central power, a cause which he adopted with the eager enthusiasm of a convert to the faith.
When Barr visited the Carnegie offices in New York towards the end 26 It was now up to Barr to organise a request from the Libraries Association of New Zealand. He had to wait while the secretaryship of the association was transferred to Bell, who turned out not to be the most dynamic of secretaries, but in August 1933, after clearing the proposal with his executive, Bell got Barr to draft an application,27 which he presented to the corporation when he visited its offices in New York later in the year. Since the corporation had already, in May 1933, set aside $US5000 for a survey of New Zealand libraries,28 its agreement was given fairly swiftly. 29 The survey was done in April and May 1934 and its report was published by the Libraries Association, after being cleared by the corporation, in December.30
It is intriguing, sometimes, to compare a sequence of events as it emerges from the files with the way it is tidied up for public consumption. It is clear from the record that the survey was decided upon by the Carnegie Corporation itself and planned by it in consultation with Barr and McIntosh, but this is how the preliminaries were described in the foreword to the Munn–Barr report:
Through travel abroad and the study of foreign library reports, the members of the Libraries Association of New Zealand realized that library development in New Zealand has not kept pace with that in Great Britain, the
United States , and other parts of the world. The Association therefore requested the Carnegie Corporation of New York to make a survey of all types of libraries in New Zealand, appraising their present activities and suggesting lines of improvement. This request was granted by the Carnegie Corporation.31
Munn and Barr sent a questionnaire to all public libraries and visited all cities of over 10,000 inhabitants except Nelson, all four university libraries, and a representative group of borough, school, and special libraries. They made special acknowledgement in their foreword to 'Mr T.D.H. Hall, Clerk of the House of Representatives, who gave his time so generously' and with whom they discussed his ideas for a plan for a national system of libraries.
The scale of things in the 1930s is indicated by the fact that the largest public library, serving Auckland's population of 106,900, had a book stock of 171,321 volumes and a staff of 36. Christchurch (population 120,000) was served by 54,147 volumes and nine staff.32 The college libraries, the report said, 'do not even approach accepted overseas standards. … A staff of three, including the librarian, is the largest one found; at Canterbury the librarian has only student help.'33 One of the report's best-loved comments, remembered through the decades, was that 'The Canterbury College library building is a tiny architectural gem and an impossible library.'34
Although the report covered all kinds of libraries, its major recommendations concerned public library service, both municipal and rural, the need for a planned and integrated national library system, and the enhancement of the role and effectiveness of the Libraries Association.35
In the matter of public library service, the report focused on the inhibitions caused by the subscription system which operated in most boroughs (the most notable exception being Dunedin) and the inevitable inadequacy of libraries in small centres which could not afford to own a wide range of stock, as well as the plight of rural areas which were served, by and large, by small, independent or semi-independent local libraries or book groups.
The tone of the sections on public library service was set by a statement that 'More consideration should be given to the threefold function of libraries, namely the cultural, vocational and recreational.' The need for public libraries to provide service free of charge in all departments, including the lending divisions, was stressed; the consequence of the subscription system, with its inherent tendency to restrict membership, was that 'the public libraries do not fulfil the purpose for which they were originally formed, which was to provide every person with the means of self-development'.
That was a comment that applied particularly to municipalities, but there were additional problems in county areas, and even in the smaller municipalities. The surveyors had in mind the kind of local body organisation that existed in Britain and the United States, where counties were larger than in New Zealand and included county towns from which they were administered. It is fair to say that they were flummoxed by the New Zealand system, and their recommendations for making the best of it were confused and impractical. They included suggestions that the area of metropolitan systems should in some way be enlarged by co-operation between adjacent local authorities, and that for truly rural areas counties should join together to form larger library districts. Such districts might have library headquarters in appropriate towns, but these headquarters should be separate from the towns' own libraries. It was all to be achieved
On the question of the separation of county libraries from urban services, Munn told Dunningham, who was then in the 36 But there was in fact no possible sensible solution to be found along British or American lines. As a separate matter, the surveyors recommended that the subsidy for independent libraries in counties, which had been abolished a few years earlier, should be restored in the form of a service to such libraries, including a circulating book stock, organised from Wellington.
There was also a recommendation that regional groupings of libraries of all kinds should be formed for the purpose of handling such matters as inter-library loans and the recording of bibiographical information. This was part of a series of recommendations on a national library plan, an essential part of which would be the conversion of the
The Libraries Association of New Zealand had not impressed Coffman, who had said, 'There is, I find, a Dominion Library Association but it is very ineffective.'37 The Munn–Barr report urged the association 'to undertake a programme of work whereby the objects for which it was formed may be more speedily and effectively achieved', and suggested that such a programme should include the promotion of plans for improvements in library service, the establishment of professional education for librarians, and the enhancement of standards of librarianship.
In dealing with the WEA, the surveyors wrote: 'The Canterbury branch operates a bookmobile, or travelling library, which carries book supplies throughout its territory. This is an interesting experiment in rural library service which may provide valuable data in connection with a more general library service to country residents.'38
When the Munn–Barr report was about to be published, McIntosh wrote to Bell, saying: 'I cannot see how the Library Assoc at present can have a programme for conferences of a technical nature. These local body committee men who seem to constitute a full 50% of conference membership are a hopeless crowd – they treat it as a jaunt. Honestly, I can't 39 McIntosh was probably justified in being critical of the Munn–Barr effort, in the light of his own contemplation of how the library system should develop, but it was at least a major event at the beginning of a major period of development.
At the beginning of 1935 McIntosh was transferred from the General Assembly Library to the Prime Minister's Department, where he became a sort of mini-brains trust for the prime minister, 40 This move coincided with a visit to New Zealand by the president of the Carnegie Corporation, 41 and in his new position he hoped to be able to work more closely with Hall in following up the Munn–Barr recommendations.
In his confidential report to the trustees of the Carnegie Corporation, Keppel said: 'With regard to the public library movement, it is my belief that it would be wise to let the Munn reports be digested for a time in each Dominion before the Corporation follows them by any specific grants. Meanwhile, we should concentrate upon the training of promising people and support by modest grants the professional interests of a few competent leaders.'42 After discussing post-Munn–Barr needs with McIntosh, he invited Barr to convene an ad hoc group to follow up the Munn–Barr report generally, but with the specific task of preparing a detailed plan for a district rural library demonstration similar to the one which had been carried out in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia. The essence of the scheme would be to demonstrate an ideal country library service for which the corporation would provide initial finance, and he hoped that, if the demonstration proved successful, the government would provide the financial support necessary to start similar district libraries elsewhere in New Zealand.43
In addition to Barr, the membership of the Carnegie Library Group, as it came to be known, consisted of the other three main city librarians (Norrie, Bell, and Dunningham), Hall, and McIntosh. The corporation provided funds to cover its expenses, and its meetings were held in Hall's office. The membership was chosen with some degree of political acumen, but Dunningham maintained, looking back later, that the two who had the trust of the Carnegie Corporation were Hall and McIntosh.44
In March 1935 the Libraries Association held its first conference since 1930. It had before it a revised constitution which had been drafted by Hall at the request of a committee set up in June 1934, and which provided for individuals to be admitted to full membership with voting powers and the right to hold office. This change in the constitution, which was approved in principle by the conference and approved by the association's council later in the year, was very important because it turned the association into an organisation which could reflect the views of those librarians who had been gaining experience and developing ideas during the previous few years, many of whom were in the full flush of youthful exuberance. In order to reflect the association's new character, its name was changed to
One of McIntosh's responsibilities in the Prime Minister's Department was to prepare statements of government policy which lay in the twilight zone between informing the public and preparing for the election which was due, after two postponements, in November 1935. In writing to 45
Hall raised the matter of a National Library Service with Forbes, whom he found very sympathetic to the idea of including it in the government's programme,46 and in consultation with Dunningham, who was working out schemes for the implementation of the Munn–Barr recommendations, he and McIntosh prepared proposals for the prime minister's endorsement. Forbes also asked Scholefield, who had departed on a Carnegie fellowship in March 1935, to report on the question of rural library service and to put forward proposals which would be appropriate for New Zealand.
The result of this work was that the government issued, in October 1935, its memorandum no.34, 'The Government's National Library Service', a four-page statement which began by saying: 'It is the Government's intention to organise a National Library Service with a view to assisting small country libraries and to provide facilities for districts which have no libraries.' Features of the proposal included a national central lending library for the distribution of books on a nationwide scale; loans of books of about 50 volumes, changed several times a year, to each library qualified 47
Memorandum no.34, slight as it was, capped a pretty good year for the New Zealand library world following the publication of the Munn–Barr report. But it did not save the government, which was swept out of office on 27 November 1935. The people had had enough of the failed policies of the past and the prospect of a fairly minimal National Library Service in the future was not enough to stay their hands.
Chapter6
Demonstrations And The Government
The years 1935 to 1938 were crucial ones for the development of the New Zealand library system, and also for settling the direction of Alley's career. The effect of the various Carnegie initiatives was to produce a small number of enthusiastic young librarians who were anxious to continue the efforts of those like Barr who had been promoting the need for improvements in library services for several years; the Munn–Barr report, for all its weaknesses, provided a standard to rally around; there was a hunger for post-Depression planning, to make New Zealand a better place to live in, which affected even the tired old Depression government which was still in office in 1935. Added to which, the talented young librarians whose eyes had seen the glory in the
This period is also a difficult one to write about, because at the beginning every individual had his or her (mostly his) strong ideas about what should be done, so that several different lines of development were being promoted, not all of which could proceed side by side. Hard facts of politics and personalities sorted them out in the end, but it would be impossible to present a clear progression leading from point A in 1935 to point B in 1938 without oversimplifying what actually happened or ignoring the factors which caused one group of results to happen rather than another. It will therefore be necessary, in this chapter, to deal somewhat separately with a number of themes which had lives of their own although they were also intertwined, and to hope that the resolution they ended in will seem to be logical.
At the beginning of the period the Munn–Barr report had highlighted the general inadequacy of library services in New Zealand and, concerning public library service, had proposed a system of district libraries which had not been thought out clearly in relation to the facts of local body government. Ideas put forward earlier by Barr, for the conversion of the
The Libraries Association changed its constitution to allow for individual membership, but the effect of this change was not yet obvious in 1935, and the Carnegie Corporation, which was not yet prepared to rely on it for action, had set up its own group to prepare for a Carnegiefunded demonstration of good library service in a selected district. The university libraries had been treated separately by the corporation, which had ensured that each of their librarians had been exposed to overseas study and experience. Further development of the library profession through training depended at this time on the courses of the (British) Library Association.
The key people, those upon whom hopes for the future lay, were very few. In naming them, it is instructive to note their ages in 1935. In the public library field there were Barr (aged 48) and to a lesser extent Norrie (55), together with Dunningham (28) and Norrie's deputy, Perry (27). The General Assembly Library, upon which so many plans depended, was headed by Scholefield (58), but the push for a national library came, within the government service, from his departmental head, Hall (50), and from McIntosh (29). Among the university librarians, those who were most significant in the wider sphere were Collins (26) and Harris (32). That was the lot, though they had an increasing band of followers. Their temperaments varied markedly, from the pragmatic to the visionary. What they had in common, besides membership of a small, close-knit group, was a determination to transform the library system. Alley (32) was not yet one of their number, though he was beginning to identify himself with the library world.
The new grant from the Carnegie Corporation for the Canterbury and Otago experiments in rural adult education became available from the beginning of 1935. It was, as we have seen, made directly to the two colleges through the corporation's special advisory committee, without involving the WEA. The corporation had indicated that it wished the
For the purpose of carrying out the corporation's wishes the two colleges, together with the advisory committee, established an umbrella organisation which they called the Association for Country Education (ACE). This was not blessed with a formal constitution, but it was a vehicle for co-operation between the colleges and for the collection of monies received from individuals and groups who took advantage of the services it provided. Arrangements were made for the home science extension work, provided from Otago, to be extended into Canterbury, and for what the Otago people called 'the cultural extension work', provided from Canterbury, to be extended into the Otago district.1 In contrast to the previous arrangements for co-operation, which were never put into effect, the two experiments now operated throughout the two districts, but independently.
To hold this structure together the ACE appointed an organiser, who was based at Otago but whose salary was shared between Otago and Canterbury. This was 2 All the tutors employed under both schemes reported to her on their work, though the conditions of employment of each tutor were controlled by his or her employing college. Alley was appointed by 3 In honour of the new organisation he had a bookplate produced which showed a reader in a book-lined room and a view of the Westcote fields through a window.
The ACE's life expectancy was clearly very limited, since its financial situation was such that, if the two experiments were to bear permanent fruit, their work would have to be taken over by established organisations before very long. The Carnegie Corporation had hoped, when it agreed to the new grant, that the New Zealand government would find it possible, as conditions improved, to honour its original agreement to provide matching finance, but there was no sign that the government intended to do so. The fee which the ACE was charging each of its clients amounted to only two shillings and sixpence a year, which would not be likely to take up the financial burden.
In these circumstances it would have been very difficult to provide additional transport for the extension of Canterbury's travelling tutorial work into the Otago district. In a report to the tutorial class committee of the WEA on the five years of the car scheme it had been suggested that, instead of a bookmobile, travelling box libraries should be used, plus coordinated monthly visits by the tutor,4 and this method was adopted for the 5 The contents of the hampers were carefully selected to match the requirements of the study groups, and they were passed on from one group to another. Alley was then able to plan visits to the groups without the distraction of issuing books on the spot. Fifty-one groups were formed during 1935, receiving an average of six and a half hampers each.6 They were spread over an area from Tuatapere in Southland to Hanmer Springs in North Canterbury.
Alley, by this time, was thinking of his work in terms which were more oriented towards library service than the adult-education origins of Shelley's experiment. In a contribution to a newsletter issued by the ACE in July 1935, he set out some points about the ACE library service that needed emphasising:
- The A.C.E Library is
notintended to be a cheap circulating library, by which is meant a book-club with any number of members, town and country, run purely for profit on the one hand and pleasure on the other. There is nothing wrong with either profit or pleasure, in their place, but those responsible for the A.C.E. Library have a wider viewpoint. They consider, and I think rightly, that these times of ours are anxious ones for all thinking people, that one great menace to world peace and the future happiness of mankind is ignorance – the 'don't care, don't know' attitude, and that any library worth its salt must aim to supply food for thought about urgent modern problems. A glance through the Contents List of the A.C.E Hampers will show thatall kindsof books are included, Fiction, Adventure, Travel,plusthe books that will not usually be found in country libraries.- The A.C.E. Library Service
is an experiment.Nobody pretends that it is going to give immediate and complete satisfaction to all who join in with it, and in any case there can never be one hundred per cent of people satisfied with any library service, but the majority of reasonable folk in the country districts are liking the Hampers that have reached them.- The A.C.E. Library Service will pave the way for a wider and fuller library service that should come in time. Everybody realises that the day of the small country or local library is nearly, if not quite, over. The withdrawal of the Government subsidy has left many of these in a very weak position, and modern transport and roads have improved so much that it would be a simple matter for County and Branch Libraries to
operate in New Zealand. Under this system the choice of books available to each person is increased enormously, by instituting a central library that keeps its branches supplied with changes of books. 7
Towards the end of 1936 Alley was dealing with some 70 groups and was drawing conclusions from his experiences with them. He had found that, although the ACE library privileges were theoretically open to any member of a rural community, groups tended to remain somewhat 'close corporations': 'It is difficult to get even an intelligent labouring man interested in a Library Group that has been sponsored by a local W.I. or a similar group. The bookmobile used in 1930–34 overcame this drawback.' The hampers, he had decided, were too small to provide sufficient choice, and the location of the books, often in private houses, inhibited their use; schools were better.8
A couple of months later he wrote:
It will be freely admitted that the A.C.E. Hamper Service cannot possibly be regarded as a final solution of the rural library problem in the area being served. In the first place it has no guarantee of permanence, no funds to enable it to do more than it has done, [or] point to a pressing need, and indicate some ways of meeting that need. The funds from the Carnegie Corporation that have been used for rural library purposes in the
South Island haveenabled a good deal of valuable experience to be gained about the possibilities of book distribution to rural areas, but these funds will shortly cease to be available, and rightly so, for they will have served their purpose, and the problem of giving financial and administrative support for the permanent carrying on of rural library services will inevitably be a domestic one – for the general Government or for the Local Authorities concerned.9
One result of the change from the book van travelling around Canterbury to the hamper service covering a wider area was that Alley was able to make more visits to established libraries, and in Dunedin he was able to observe the transformation which Dunningham had made in the few years since his appointment as city librarian. In reflecting later on Dunningham's influence, he wrote: 'I think 10 And again: 'when I had seen the 11
When F.P. Keppel, the president of the Carnegie Corporation, visited Wellington in January 1935, McIntosh gave him a document in which he had set out his ideas on a demonstration, based on the Munn–Barr recommendations, of rural library service.12 He thought that a preliminary stage should occupy 1936–37 and the actual demonstration 1938–43, the ultimate aim being to achieve an efficient National Library Service. Such a service should be free of the constraint of subscriptions; it would need better funding than was possible under existing rating limitations; it should provide equal facilities for town and country; and the government should provide sufficient money over and above local funds to make the system efficient. 'Best means of achieving this – by a demonstration – with the Carnegie Corporation temporarily acting in place of Government.' McIntosh also urged the need for the Library Association to be reorganised to become a professional body with a two-fold educational function: (a) to educate librarians in their own technical sphere, and (b) to educate public opinion in all matters of library interest.
It was on the basis of this document that Keppel asked Barr to convene the Carnegie Library Group, with the task of preparing plans for a rural library demonstration. At the first meeting of the group, which was held on 16 April 1935, it was agreed that the Taranaki district would be a suitable one. Barr wanted to press right on with the demonstration, but Hall and McIntosh thought that a preliminary survey of the demonstration area should be undertaken, followed by the drafting of a scheme suitable to New Zealand conditions, one which it would be possible for local bodies to accept and which would also be within the scope of the government to finance. Munn and Barr, wrote McIntosh, 'expect to achieve this objective by an amalgamation of counties and the institution of a scheme similar to the English County system, but for local reasons this is not practicable. The English County system was taken over by the administrative county which has a long tradition of social service, an existing fabric of administrative machinery, and large sums of revenue. New Zealand counties are entirely different and very puny in comparison. … They have only one real function – that of tending the secondary roads.'13
The group agreed that a preliminary survey of the Taranaki district should be undertaken, but progress beyond that point was slow, since the next necessary step was to clarify various issues relating to the ultimate objective of the proposed demonstration itself. This was the time when McIntosh and Hall were helping the prime minister (Forbes) to prepare the government's proposals for a National Library Service which would start with a service to rural libraries. It was also a year which started with
Once the decision to make a preliminary survey was reached, it was assumed that McIntosh would do it, but he became increasingly busy in the Prime Minister's Department, and when a by-election became necessary in the Lyttelton electorate he told Barr that he would not be available. To replace himself he suggested 14 Barr doubted whether McCormick could work with hard-headed cockies in Taranaki; in Alley's case, he had been impressed by his thesis, 'but Bell told me when we met in Wellington that he is not suitable for library work'.15
So matters rested while preliminary discussions on the preliminary survey dragged on, though in October 1935, after Forbes had announced his government's plans, 16
On 1 December 1935 a meeting of the group agreed to a set of proposals for the objectives to be achieved by a library demonstration, of which these were the main points:
- The group accepted generally the recommendations of the Munn-Barr report (which had the effect of excluding New Plymouth, the main centre, a fatal flaw).
- It was desirable for library service to remain the function of local bodies, but it would be essential for the government to give financial assistance.
- 'Until larger units of local administration are formed, local bodies should, for library purposes, form voluntary groups on a co-operative basis. In the present state of public opinion alone it would be unwise to create a special library district with the necessary rating and other powers or to combine existing local authorities compulsorily.'
- A district depository containing books for loan to local authorities would act as the co-ordinating centre.
- 'Government control and direction should come through the
National Library .'- The co-operative area would be directed by a central depository under a trained librarian appointed by and responsible to the national library.
- Stocks would be distributed through existing libraries and through various voluntary organisations, as well as by bookmobile, cartage services, and mail.
- Books provided to the libraries and groups should be lent to the public free.
The objects of the demonstration would be to show people in the country districts what library service was; to show the government the advantages of such a system; and to work out in detail the problems connected with a service which it was hoped would ultimately cover all rural districts of New Zealand.17
The election of 27 November 1935, which brought a new Labour administration into power, was not such a shock to those who had worked for the Forbes administration as it might have been. The new ministers were well known to their public servants, and
Moreover, the attitude of Forbes and his colleagues towards library matters had been liberal and forward-looking, so that what the Carnegie Library Group could reasonably expect would be an intensification rather than a change of policy. Fraser was one of those Labour people who had used libraries to educate themselves, and he was the one who later adopted a general statement on educational policy, drafted for him by 18
Fraser was, however, a canny and honest politician who was not prepared to make promises before he was sure that he could carry them out. Even in 1937, speaking at the conference of the NZLA, he declined to announce a policy on libraries. 'The Government will announce its policy in due course,' he said, 'but again, for very obvious reasons, the question of the extension of libraries, of the national library scheme, of circulating libraries – all that has had to be postponed because of more urgent matters. … It would be almost cynical, when people asked for bread, to present them with books.'19
What most of those who attended that conference did not know was that Fraser had been considering library matters very carefully, and was
In his accompanying comments McIntosh said:
But Mr. Forbes's scheme was only to be a transition stage, and we regarded it as a 'stop-gap' until the demonstration, which we were endeavouring to persuade the Carnegie Corporation to undertake, should have been tried, and would have shown the ultimate scheme which should be adopted for the whole of the Dominion. Briefly, under Mr. Forbes's scheme the
General Assembly Library was to have attached to it a lending section for small rural libraries and for isolated individuals in the country. The Carnegie Corporation demonstration area was to serve a particular district on model lines and was to work out all the problems connected with such a service. Both schemes were to be undertaken simultaneously but by the time the five-year demonstration period had finished it was anticipated that the central scheme would be getting too big and would have to be decentralised on the lines that the demonstration would have indicated.
In dealing with more specific issues, McIntosh said that there were 'still a number of topics which have not yet been considered. For example, the question of school libraries and the Canterbury travelling library, to mention only two.'20
Scholefield's report (requested by Forbes) endorsed the general thrust of the Munn–Barr recommendations on rural and district libraries and on the development of a service attached to the 21 In writing to Barr, McIntosh said that, in saying that nothing could be done until boroughs got power to raise their library rates in order to make their libraries free and until the counties were 22
Scholefield's report was printed as an official paper23 and has been referred to often as a landmark document, but in fact it had very little influence on the course of events except in helping to make the topic respectable. Scholefield himself deferred to the ideas which were being developed by the Carnegie Library Group,24 and he was added to the group in February 1936.
Meanwhile, attempts to find a Taranaki surveyor to replace McIntosh continued. Bell offered his services, to the consternation of other members of the group; Barr said he would not be able to do it, and no one tried to persuade him to give it a go.25 Finally, McIntosh, Norrie, and Scholefield all suggested that Alley should be invited to attend a meeting of the group that had been scheduled for 1 August 1936 in order to give his views on rural library service (and so that he could be looked over for possible longer-term use).26 Immediately after this meeting the group invited Alley to undertake the Taranaki survey,27 which he did in a period of six weeks from the beginning of October after being briefed by Barr, McIntosh, and Dunningham.
Alley's task was to explain the advantages of a modern rural library system to as many interested persons, groups, and local authorities in Taranaki as possible, basing his approach on the Munn–Barr recommendations and on the policy document which the group had agreed upon on 1 December 1935; to gather the kind of information that would be needed in planning a demonstration; and to try to get from the local authorities an assurance of financial support if a demonstration were arranged. The proposal that he put to the local authorities was that service to borrowers should be free, and that the authorities should pay nothing in the first year, 10 per cent of an estimated cost of one shilling per head of population in the second, third and fourth years, and 50 per cent in the fifth year of the demonstration. He did not have to spell out what would happen after the fifth year, since that would depend on the success of the demonstration, as well as on moves which might be made by the government in the future. It was a very intensive programme for Alley, and by 8 November he was writing to Barr about the onset of 'complete exhaustion',28 but his personality and impressive presence ensured that his approaches were taken very seriously by the Taranaki people. He returned to Christchurch on 22 November, and his report,29 dated 21 January 1937, was made public before the conference of the NZLA which was held the next month.
In his report Alley described the library situation in each local authority area and set out the reaction of each authority to his proposals. In the case of Egmont county and its independent town district, Opunake, for 30
A summary of the reactions of the local authorities showed that about onethird approved of the proposals, a slightly higher number were undecided or doubtful, and the rest (including Egmont/Opunake) rejected them. To an optimist, hope would have come from two-thirds of the respondents; but a pessimist could also have found confirmation of his fears from two-thirds. A table in which Alley set out the density of population and the number of dairy cows per 100 acres in 11 counties, compared with their reception of the proposals, was quite inconclusive, which was probably a useful piece of information in itself.31
To round out the report, Alley outlined a possible Taranaki rural library scheme, including the location of the district headquarters, the means of distribution of the district book supply, the type of book to be supplied, and the special needs of children and of Maori readers.32 He concluded this section by saying that the project would be feasible 'on the mechanical side', but he added a final comment which could have been taken as a warning: 'The only difficulties are administrative – who shall be responsible? It would be a melancholy reflection that no administrative framework can be found for so desirable a building.'33 This warning, which was a crucial one, was added almost as an afterthought, but it highlighted major flaws in the Munn–Barr approach: the vain hope that small, independent counties could be persuaded to co-operate for what they saw as a minor project and to stay co-operating through thick and thin; and, in addition, the absence from the whole scheme of the major library authority in the district, in this case New Plymouth.
To Barr, who looked forward to overseeing a demonstration on behalf of the Carnegie Corporation, the report was a signal to go ahead with plans and with the preparation of a case for financial support from the corporation. Scholefield was benignly disposed towards the possible eventual involvement of the
Hall and McIntosh had a very clear vision of a library system which, they assumed, would be part of a national library developed on the foundations of the
After Alley returned to Christchurch he wrote that 'the Survey has produced, on my part, fresh understanding of the rural library problem in New Zealand, and I hope that some of the many things I have learned may be used for the benefit of the A.C.E. Library Service in the future. I hope … that there will be an opportunity for me to submit plans for the improvement of the existing A.C.E. Library Service, along lines that would make the ultimate goal of a nation-wide scheme in New Zealand more readily attainable.'34
It was at about this time that Alley formally associated himself with the newly reconstituted 35 The council of the association from 1935 included Barr, Bell, Dunningham, Norrie, Perry, and Scholefield, who were joined in 1937 by Collins, Hall, and Harris, and by C.R.H. (Clyde) Taylor of the Alexander Turnbull Library. Between 1935 and 1937 societies of librarians were formed in the four main centres and then became branches of the NZLA. Alley was elected deputy chairman of the Canterbury branch on 5 April 1937.36
The conference of the NZLA which was held in Wellington in February 1937 was the first of its post-reform era. The association's official history says that it was at this conference that 'the Association came right',37 and it was from this point that it entered a period in which major issues in librarianship were debated at its meetings by those who were in a position to formulate policies and then either implement them themselves or try to persuade their employers to put them into effect. The list of the association's members was still predominantly made up of library institutions, librarians 38 Alley was appointed to the committee on inter-library loans, convened by Collins, which recommended in May 1937 that the NZLA sponsor a scheme, pioneered in 1936 by the university libraries,39 for lending between libraries which could meet criteria of reciprocal advantage – initially, libraries would send requests directly to each other, but 'When there is a national library and regional headquarters, with regional and national union catalogues, these centres should assume responsibility for inter-library loans.'40
The theme of the 1937 conference was 'A National Library System for New Zealand'. When Hall spoke to it he gave some thoughts on a national scheme in general; Scholefield spoke on the place of the 41 which, as we see it now in print, was more practical and more focused than any of the others. He identified three main types of country library: '(1) the library serving a borough, (2) the library serving a town district, and (3) the small isolated country library which is generally an independent concern with a handful of subscribers'. All three types, he said, must inevitably suffer from a chronic shortage of books due to the smallness of the administrative unit, but in the case of the first two categories there was the possibility of demonstrating improvements in library service before the eyes of their local authorities. The case of the third category was very different because of the great difficulty of interesting a county authority in their doings.
'It is this derelict type of small country library,' Alley said, 'that is the most unsatisfactory feature of our rural library problem, for it attracts sympathy from the general government while it is considered hopeless by those who know its limitations. Even with grants of money or books it must remain unsatisfactory, often badly housed, inefficiently administered – a dead end in a wilderness. … Its salvation can only come from its participation in a planned district system, plus the direction and, I hope, the sympathetic understanding of a specialist district librarian. It must command respect, not only from the people who will use it liberally, but also from the responsible local authority … and the general government, who will then support it liberally, or rather the system of which it forms a part.'
Alley then went on to talk of the sociological environment in which Cymbeline:
Fear no more the heat o' the sun Nor the furious winter's rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone and ta'en thy wages. 42
'We who speak English can know and understand him,' said Alley, 'We feel the heat of the sun, and the furious winter's rages.' What was striking about this paper of Alley's was the combination of his appreciation of administrative realities with his sense of the purpose of library service. 'The rural library must be well equipped technically, and it must be soundly administered. … It must, however, so identify itself with every fruitful phase of human activity in its area that it will prove its absolute worth.'
After its conference the NZLA prepared a four-page leaflet, entitled 'National Library System for New Zealand', which was distributed to delegates at the annual conference of the
This was a critical time for decisions to be made which would determine the way in which the library system of the country would develop. From the time of Barr's early conference addresses, through the plans which McIntosh worked out while he was in the
Scholefield was obviously a key figure in the plans for the future as they stood in 1936 and early 1937, but Hall and McIntosh had begun to doubt whether he would put his heart into a major revision of the role of his library. The reasons for their doubts were mixed. Scholefield had made no secret of his own priorities, which could have had the effect of a wet blanket, smothering a flame which needed to be coaxed into life; and McIntosh deeply resented the way in which the report he wrote on his return from the
In his 1933 report McIntosh had, in effect, proposed a drastic revision of the role of the 43 McIntosh moved to the Prime
Scholefield, for his part, could be pardoned for finding his brash young staff member a little uncomfortable to live with, but his temperament was equable and he bore no grudges. In 1943, for instance, he regretted that McIntosh would not be available for the post of national librarian, if it were to be created then, 'but that was too good to happen. A man of his stature was bound to be used in a wider sphere.'44 Scholefield was prepared to take part in discussions on an enhanced role for the 45 – but there is no evidence that he set out to frustrate them, either.
Sometime in 1937 Hall and McIntosh decided to drop the idea of using the 46
It is very likely that the new approach to the overall problem of the development of a National Library Service, let alone a system which would include the creation of library districts, was not thought through at that time. The first priority was to replace the subsidies by a more effective system of government assistance to rural libraries, and Alley was asked, probably by Hall, to draft a proposal for this purpose for submission to the minister of education, 47
The draft was completed in June 1937 and was then presented to a meeting of the council of the NZLA, which was invited to submit it to the minister. After discussing it with a small NZLA committee, Alley sent a revised version to the honorary secretary of the NZLA (Norrie) on 10 July ('this seems to be very good indeed,' minuted Perry), and on 20 July
The document, entitled 'Assistance for Country Libraries',48 set out various ways in which country people were currently able to gain access to books – by belonging to a city book club, to a small borough library, or to a small isolated country library financed by subscriptions and able to buy only a few pounds worth of novels yearly. It estimated that at least 80 per cent of country people were without any kind of library service. It then proposed that the government should adopt a policy of assistance to country libraries, of which the two basic features would be (a) skilled assistance to these libraries by a specialist staff in the field and at headquarters, and (b) loan services of books which had been carefully chosen; and it commented that 'Without the services of a capable staff this service of books should not be undertaken.' It recommended that a free service should be given to boroughs and town districts, but that they in return should be required to offer a free service to their inhabitants. A contract service for a small charge should be offered to independent libraries and groups in county districts, which would be required to open their membership to all comers. The mechanics of implementing the proposals were set out in some detail, and the cost for the 1937–38 year was estimated at £3000; for 1938–39, £5500, including £600 for two service vans; and for 1939–40, £4130. A reference and information service would be allowed to grow 'as the need for it became evident'.
The emphasis, in the proposal, on free library service in boroughs and town districts, which followed a major recommendation of the Munn– Barr report, was of particular importance. Equally important, for its longterm implications, was the acceptance in the document of the inability of most counties to provide any kind of library service at all. Although it said that 'ultimately it is hoped that groupings of local authorities for library purposes will make possible a sound "district depository" system by which each contributing unit will be served efficiently from the larger source', this can only be read as a pious hope.
The presentation of the proposal to the minister by the NZLA was a landmark of a kind, too. This was one of the earliest occasions on which the name of the NZLA was attached to a major policy proposal, and the fact that it had been prepared outside the association did not diminish the importance of the occasion. Fraser, who had no doubt been well prepared in advance, accepted it as coming from the NZLA – the first of many such proposals over the years to come. After Cabinet approval, an item appeared in the Estimates for 1937–38 which were laid before the committee of supply on 28 September 1937: Department of Education Subdivision XIV (Miscellaneous Services), Assistance to country libraries, £3000.49 In his
Assistance for country libraries. A scheme is being inaugurated for assisting small libraries in country districts. This will take the form of a regular supply of books from a central source, and will constitute the beginning of a comprehensive national library system. This service will be ready for operation early next year. A sum of £3,000 is to be provided as an initial grant.
50
It is not clear when it was decided to attach the new service to the 51
Alley kept the ACE and its three governing bodies informed of the discussions with the NZLA and the government through his contributions to 52
Writing in November 1937 on the ACE's programme for 1938, after more details of the government's decision had been released, Macmillan said, 'It would appear … that there is every likelihood that those responsible for the National Library Service will enter into negotiations with the N.Z. Carnegie Advisory Committee with a view to taking over the A.C.E. Library and with it Mr. Alley whose services, I understand, are desired either in the capacity of Librarian in the national scheme, or as Librarian in charge of the proposed Carnegie Library Experiment in Taranaki, should the latter be put into effect.' She speculated on whether the government would take over the whole service and its commitments, and on what terms its books, hampers, and other property should be made over to the new service. Her opinion was that 'although these represent a very considerable outlay, it would be inadvisable to set a price on them, but rather to offer them to the Minister as a nucleus for the new National Library Service, in anticipation of favourable treatment in the future in regard to other activities carried out by the A.C.E.'.53
After some delays which were no doubt due to operational requirements, Fraser convened a meeting to discuss the appointment of an officer-in 54 In saying 'no option', McIntosh would have been referring to the fact that time was running out for getting the 55 Alley was informed of his appointment on 29 November;56 the starting date was 1 December 1937, but this did not raise eyebrows either at
In recommending the appointment, Lambourne said: 'It is proposed that Mr. Alley should be on the establishment of the
Those who were present at the meeting which decided on the recommendation were the minister of education, the secretary of the Treasury, the director of education, Scholefield, Hall, McIntosh, and Norrie.57 In writing his memoirs later Scholefield said, 'I always regarded the meeting at which Fraser approved Alley's appointment to take the key post as a red-letter day for New Zealand.'58 The question of the ACE's library assets was satisfactorily resolved when Fraser assured the ACE that its library programme in the 59 Another ACE staff member, N.A.J. Barker, who had carried on the ACE work after Alley's departure, was also, at the end of January 1938, appointed to the CLS.60 From the point of view of the ACE, the experiment that had started with the CAR scheme in 1930 had been successful, and success had come before the Carnegie money ran out.
In the second half of November 1937, before his appointment had been legitimised, Alley went on a familiarisation tour of libraries in the northern reaches of the 61 and reflect the experience he had gained in his years in Canterbury. Among the more pungent are, of two of the libraries, 'A poor library and a rather complacent attitude', and 'A pathetic survival', but there were rays of light as well. Turua was 'One of the best small libraries I have seen. Run by an independent committee which is jealous of linking up with the County Council'; in Hinuera there was 'Good book selection. Condition of books good. Every effort made to circulate the books. Librarian is wife of local dairy factory manager and she arranges deliveries of books by cream cart.' Tauranga had 'a good library' and at Morrinsville there was 'a progressive library spirit in evidence'. Kaikohe was the jewel in the crown: 'The most interesting library visited on tour. Librarian (Mrs. Moore) and Committee member (Mrs. Orr) in attendance. Library small but administered on good lines. Re-organized 1937 on free library principles. Result is a decided improvement on anything seen. … Munn–Barr report taken as basis of re-organization and quoted as authority for new plan.'
A tour of the southern half of the 62
The most urgent task at the start was to prepare an initial order for books. To do this Alley went to Dunedin from 13 to 18 December 1937, where he was able, with Dunningham's help, to make a list from the actual use, by readers, of a lively book collection. He sent the first part of the list to Hall on 18 December, and Hall referred it to Fraser, who commented: 'The list seems to me to be on the whole a fair one, to meet the tastes of all sorts of readers.'63 It comprised 1138 titles, estimated to cost £468 3s. 8d. sterling, and was sent to the high commissioner in London on 20 December. One can imagine the scramble which must have occurred when the books trickled in, to get them ready for early operations.
The accommodation that was provided for the new service was in the basement of the Parliament building, next to the boilers and below the Maori Affairs Committee Room. Alley later remembered 'walking into the smaller of the two rooms of the basement which had been allotted to this curious new service which Mr Fraser, Mr Hall, and others had brought into being. There was a chair and a table, a little black table, nothing else. The larger room had been used by a committee on fisheries 64 This accommodation could hardly be called high profile, but then the real impact of the CLS was to be in small communities throughout the country, not in Wellington. Its advantages included proximity to the centre of government, to the minister, and to Hall, to whom Alley had been seconded for a probationary period. The minister, in this case, was one who had the new service close to his heart, and the tradition of direct access by the head of the CLS to him and to his successor, H.G.R. Mason, became firmly entrenched.
Secondment to Hall was a master stroke for the induction of one who knew little of the ways of the public service. Hall had to teach Alley much about the day-to-day things that were done in government, and he taught him well; Alley was always meticulous in his observance of procedures and in maintaining the standards of integrity which were a mark of the public service in Hall's day. More than that, though, Hall and Alley had similar philosophies and were able, in those early days, to discuss the basis of the CLS and the objectives it should seek to achieve. Hall 'wasn't a librarian,' Alley has said, 'but he had very deeply rooted some of the philosophy of librarianship: the idea of access to information, the freedom of the individual to choose … Hall was an older type of civil servant, a person quite literate, quite articulate, a very cultured person in terms of the day … He believed that the strength of a nation lay not in great developments but in the hundreds and hundreds of smaller units and groupings.'65
The Country Library Service was formally inaugurated and declared operational on 30 May 1938 in the presence of members of the Cabinet and representatives of the NZLA, educational institutions, and farmers' and women's organisations. Fraser was there, Hall was there, and Shelley was there. Also present were two book vans which had been built in the Government Railway Workshops.66 67 Fraser, who by now was patron of the NZLA, and Hall, who by now was its president, spoke in their official governmental capacities, Hall paying tribute to the help which had been given by the Carnegie Corporation. Prime Minister M.J. Savage and
The CLS began on a small scale, consistent with its origin as a replacement for the old subsidies to small country libraries. By the end of 1938 the book vans were visiting 16 public libraries controlled by borough councils or 68
Remember those letters, A to D – derived from the planning document of June 1937, they were, and remained as long as the CLS continued, a convenient shorthand for the different types of service.
In his report on the service's first half-year Alley wrote: 'A determined effort has been made to get libraries interested in the many kinds of books to which they have not been accustomed – books on social questions, child study, health, diet and nutrition, games and outdoor sports, music, art, gardening, and many other topics.'69 Fraser's view, given to Parliament in August 1938, was that '70 By the end of 1938 the number of books held by the CLS was 16,533.71 This seems very low by later standards, but at the time it suggested rapid growth.
Before Alley's appointment to establish the CLS his home had been in Christchurch, and it was by no means clear, at the end of 1937, whether the national library plans which were still being developed would involve a Wellington-based organisation, though that did seem likely. Nevertheless, it was prudent not to take any precipitate steps in relocating. For a short time in the mid-1930s Geoff and Euphan had been living in Clyde Road, where, on 30 August 1935, a second daughter, 72 until her own death, though much of the estate was, in due course, sold to a neighbour,
The Alleys' third child, Roderic Martin (known as Rod or Roc), was born on 4 December 1937, in the midst of the excitement of his father's appointment. For the greater part of 1938 Euphan and the children stayed at Westcote with Clara, while Geoff boarded in Wellington, in Thorndon, near 73 So the lives of the Alleys proceeded more or less as they had done, and the CLS began to take on a life of its own, though there still
Rewi made another visit to New Zealand early in 1937 before making a round-the-world trip to inspect factory security systems of relevance to his work in Shanghai. While travelling by rail in the 74 He was disturbed by the possibility that they might turn into the kind of uniformed thugs who were so familiar in the '30s in other countries, even in Britain,75 but it must have been then that the New Zealand branch established a Rewi Alley Fund to help his work in China, to which the 1200 members contributed one shilling each with their subscriptions; these levies continued until 1949.76 Rewi and Geoff paid Joy's subscription to the Left Book Club during Rewi's 1937 trip, after visiting her in Pipiriki, where she was working as a district nurse.77
By the time the
E.J. Bell, who had preceded Hall as president, said in his presidential address: 'I would remind the younger generation that they cannot expect to achieve results all at once. Library development in this land is the result of many years of patient effort, and it is folly to undertake too many schemes until such have been thoroughly investigated and well thought out.'78 But the good keen men and women who made up the younger generation were of a mind to achieve as many results as possible all at once and to work unselfishly to do so. Committees which had been set up in 1937 were working to produce practical solutions to a number of problems, supported by the four branches, in which questions of national policy were debated by members whose seniority in the admittedly tiny profession enabled them to regard the association's concerns as theirs and theirs as the association's. A request to the Carnegie Corporation for financial assistance to establish an office and to help with the promotion of causes such as library training was prepared in 1937 and sent to the corporation early in February 1938,79 and moves were being made to have the association incorporated, so that it could more easily handle an increased level of activity and the funds that would be involved.
The Carnegie Corporation had continued to award travel grants for library purposes during this period. Scholefield and Hall were both chosen once the question of rural library services had come under consideration, and in 1936 Keppel, urged by 80 Hall, with McIntosh and Scholefield, selected 81
Another important person who was offered a Carnegie fellowship, but was unable to take it up, was 82
While the moves which led to the establishment of the CLS at the end of 1937 were going ahead, and the NZLA was quickly coming into its own as a body to be taken seriously (and one that might be able to secure Carnegie money), Barr, acting as convener of the Carnegie Library Group, was pressing on with plans for the Taranaki demonstration. In May 1937 Barr and Norrie, like two sea elephants, engaged in a brief territorial dispute. Barr started it by writing to Norrie saying that the association would have to be very careful in making requests to the Carnegie Corporation, since the corporation would have to be satisfied that the association was constituted 'in a manner likely to accomplish definite results … The plan of work for the Association, which the Group has been considering and will be submitted for the Group's approval at the next meeting, would suggest a cautious attitude on the part of the Council to the proposal of an immediate, direct appeal to the Carnegie Corporation for support.' He suggested that the group would carry more weight with the corporation than the association would.83
Norrie, in a four-page reply, said: 'I do not think it is – or ever was – 84 Barr responded in tones of injured innocence, but said that 'The Group, like the Association, is an independent body, and can please itself in the policy it adopts. Keppel insisted on an independent Group, and wouldn't be budged.'85
It was subsequently agreed that the two bodies should keep each other informed of their plans with regard to the Carnegie Corporation, the 86 The request from the NZLA for support for its expansive programme, which was sent to the corporation in February 1938, amounted to £8305.
There was a rather nice element of farce in the sparring between the association and the group. There had always been, since 1935, a considerable degree of cross-membership between the two bodies, and by 1938 six members of the group (Barr, Bell, Dunningham, Hall, Norrie, and Scholefield) were also members of the NZLA council. Alley, who at one stage was thought of as the one to run the demonstration, joined the NZLA council in 1938, while McIntosh, Keppel's trusted adviser, was a member of the group. The difficulty which no one was prepared to tackle was the determination of Barr, who was not a team man, to maintain his own honoured position, and at first it didn't matter all that much, but it did become a bit embarrassing later.
In November 1937 Munn wrote to Norrie saying:
At the moment I am endeavoring to reach a fair recommendation concerning the demonstration in the New Plymouth area in view of the more recent acceptance by the government of the plan for rural service through the
General Assembly Library . I am also told that theNew Zealand Library Association is meeting at about this time to make demands upon the Corporation's funds. I am inclined to recommend that a decision on the demonstration be postponed until we hear from theNew Zealand Library Association . I can see the hand of McIntosh in the government's favorable action. Certainly it is the most promising event in New Zealand librarianship, and you are fortunate in having McIntosh in his present position. I suspect that he is far more important to you in the Premier's Office than he could be in any library position.87
Then, in February 1938, the NZLA's request for assistance reached the corporation, and Keppel, who had been kept well-informed, especially by McIntosh, of the way things were developing in New Zealand, decided to make a move which would clarify the situation. He wrote to both Norrie and Barr on 22 April to say that the corporation was worried about the prospect of having to finance two large projects, and, after setting out a number of searching questions, suggested that the association and the group should consider them together and submit a joint application for assistance.88 He also arranged for his personal assistant,
At a combined meeting of the NZLA council and the Carnegie Library Group, held on 17 June 1938, Alley suggested that, in view of the rapid growth of the 89
At this point McIntosh and Russell, two buddies who were the real connecting link between the New Zealand library world and the Carnegie Corporation, came up with the idea of including, as part of a grant to the NZLA, the cost of appointing a liaison officer between the NZLA and the CLS,90 who would be attached to the staff of the CLS and would help to promote the rapid changes in library service which both organisations were engaged in. McIntosh also told Alley at this time that 'our retention of the demonstration is evidently calculated to surprise Keppel who considers that it is no longer necessary',91 but in the meantime this was treated as useful background information. The proposal for a liaison officer was included in the re-drafted request, but at the same time it was proposed that the demonstration should be organised and administered by the CLS and financed for three years by the corporation and the local authorities concerned, after which the government should assume financial responsibility in conjunction with the local authorities.
Because the CLS was now an integral part of the whole proposal, the draft request to the corporation was submitted to Fraser, through Alley, for his approval.92 Fraser's response was that the proposals relating to the NZLA application were in order so far as the government was concerned, but that the demonstration project was unnecessary: 'It was the Government's intention to undertake … the establishment of depositories as a normal step in the development of the 93
The application which was then sent to the corporation was therefore for assistance to the NZLA amounting to £7425 over a period of five years, of which a little less than half was for the employment of the liaison officer, whose duties would include visits to libraries to promote library policies and provide advice, the organisation of correspondence courses and summer schools for the library training committee of the association, the preparation of instructional material and bulletins, and the organisation of voluntary work (for instance, for the compilation of a union list of serials).94 It was signed by Hall, Norrie, and Barr. The Carnegie Corporation responded very quickly by approving a grant to the NZLA of $29,700, which translated into about £7750 at the rate of exchange then current.95
Fraser's pronouncement was a landmark in the development of the CLS and of the library system generally, and much has been made of it, especially in the emphasis which has been placed on Fraser's presumed dislike of the Carnegie name. 96 and Alley, in his reminiscences, said that in his mind Fraser could not separate the Carnegie Corporation from the 97 In the folk memory of the New Zealand library profession is the picture of Fraser being confronted by a scheme in which the CLS would be associated with the old enemy and responding by saying that the government would do it all by extending the scope of the CLS.
This is not how it happened. There is no reason to doubt the reservations Fraser had about the Carnegie name, but he was a shrewd and objective man and, as we have seen, he was in fact very well informed about the corporation's past involvement in New Zealand librarianship and about the plans for a Carnegie-funded demonstration in Taranaki. McIntosh's memorandum of 23 January 1936, compiled at Fraser's request, was very detached and held nothing back, and it is also inconceivable that Hall and McIntosh, whose relations with Fraser were friendly and trusting, would have failed to keep him informed about later developments. It is much more likely that all three, joined by Alley at a later stage, would have discussed the rather complicated moves involving the NZLA, the Carnegie Library Group, and the CLS as they evolved. Furthermore, an extension of the role of the CLS was not a sudden decision: it had been forecast in the announcement of the establishment of the CLS, and it was a more logical way of proceeding than having a developing CLS running in tandem with a separate demonstration.
The real problem was Barr's determination to maintain the role and standing of the Carnegie Library Group long after the reasons for its formation had been overtaken by the renaissance of the NZLA and the establishment of the CLS. This was understood by officials of the Carnegie Corporation, and probably by those members of the group who had become senior members of the NZLA, but they undoubtedly wanted to find a solution which would be acceptable to all parties. Extension of the role of the CLS was one part of the solution; a liaison officer between the CLS and the NZLA was another – and if Fraser's Carnegie-phobia was another which could be suggested as an intractable stumbling block, well, why not? Why deny it? By the time the draft for a joint request which included both
98 He was also, however, something of a loner, and apt to surprise everyone by making a sudden move which undercut discussions others thought were still proceeding, as when he accepted a Carnegie travel grant at the same time as he and his public library colleagues were discussing who should be nominated for the grant; or when he set out to tell the people of Taranaki that they were going to get a library demonstration before Taranaki had been finally decided upon by the full Carnegie Library Group, only to be restrained by McIntosh at the last minute.99 McIntosh's description of him as 'a slippery little bugger'100 was not without foundation, but it was by no means the whole story.
Barr, in effect, rejoined the mainstream from this point. He was elected president of the NZLA at its conference in February 1939 (nominated by Hall), and in 1944, when he wrote an article to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Munn–Barr survey and report, he called it 'N.Z. Libraries, 1934–44, or, Hasn't it been Fun?'101
The CLS, by the end of 1938, was still a very small organisation but the way to its future had come into view. Alley, whose qualities appealed to Fraser, had begun to establish himself as a major adviser to the government on library matters, taking over part of the role that had been played by Hall and McIntosh. The extension of the scope of the CLS to incorporate the drive towards a better rural library service for which the Taranaki demonstration had been designed was the step which set the lines of development for many years to come, for better or for worse.
Chapter7
Anni Mirabiles: Country Library Service
Until Fraser made his decision, in August 1938, that the scope of the
Towards the end of 1938 Euphan moved to Wellington with the three children. Geoff had taken a lease, from his cousin Reuel Lochore, of one of two houses in Te Anau Road, Hataitai, which Reuel had inherited from his father; Reuel was living in the other. On the edge of the Hataitai ridge, overlooking Evans Bay and the Miramar peninsula, with the harbour entrance, the eastern bays, the Orongorongo hills, and the Rimutaka range beyond, Te Anau Road commands one of the most spectacular views in a spectacular city; and it is within comfortable distance of the city centre – an advantage, since the Alleys had no car.
Lochore had spent several years in Germany in the early 1930s, studying widely in linguistics and historical and philosophical subjects and gaining a doctorate from the University of Bonn. In 1938 he was hoping for a government appointment which would make use of his esoteric learning, but nothing had turned up yet and he was teaching at Scots College, which must have reminded him of his old school, 1
With the likelihood of another war starting, Euphan's dear friend
In February 1939 Alley prepared a lengthy report for Fraser on the work of the 2 He set out statistical information on the number of local authorities and county groups that had joined the service, and he went into some detail about its organisation and administration. Among other things, indulging his fascination for minor but possibly useful facts, he noted that the fuel consumption of the
Alley commented that the main difficulty over the Munn–Barr proposals for a system of library districts 'is that it is very unlikely that a sufficient number of local authorities in the same district could be persuaded to give enough support at the outset to any plan for free library service. But the scheme would depend on having all the counties and boroughs contributing from the beginning.' A more gradual approach, through the CLS, would be more likely to succeed. Nevertheless, Alley recommended a three-year plan which included the offer of free service to counties, the formation of library districts, the establishment of a service to schools in the district areas, and assistance to larger libraries by way of subsidies. Some of these recommendations did not really accord with the reservations he had already expressed, but it is not unusual for new appointees, in writing after one year in their new jobs, to be a little naïve in looking into the future – they are protected by the fact that very few people later remember what they said at that time.
In the peroration to his report Alley wrote: 'The process of bringing a unified system of library service into full operation will take longer than three years. The greater part of the task should, however, be done by the end of 1941. The ultimate cost to the Government of a full scheme can be estimated fairly accurately at £30,000 a year. This sum, although
It is as well to be cautiously optimistic when embarking on a new project, but in fact there was no hope of getting a substantial unified system of library service into operation as easily as all that. What the library movement as a whole was wanting to achieve was not simply a matter of providing more resources, but a change in community attitudes towards free access to the printed word – to regarding such access as a public good (to use later jargon). Alley's three-year plan, on its own and in existing conditions, was too optimistic, and yet, if the aims of the library movement and its supporters were to be achieved, it was necessary that substantial results should be achieved quickly, so that appreciation of the new approach to library service could be consolidated. This, it is clear, was the underlying reason for the proposal that a liaison officer should be appointed to work with the CLS and the NZLA.
Fraser agreed in January 1939 that the position of liaison officer should be advertised by the Public Service Commission in New Zealand, and that nominations should also be sought from the Library Association (London) and the 3 Munn advised that there was no point in advertising in the 4 who were interviewed in London by 5 Campbell said that the panel recommended 6
In case these procedures seem to have had an unusual potential for the crossing of booby-trapped wires, it should be noted that the central executive committee of the NZLA included such familiar names as Alley, Hall, Norrie, Perry, and Scholefield. Everything, in fact, went very smoothly, and 7
Carnell had gained the diploma of the Library Association (London) in 1931, and the same association's honours diploma in 1936 upon County Libraries: retrospect and forecast, had been published in 1938. Most of her experience had been in English county systems, and at the time of her appointment she was a branch librarian of the Lancashire County Library. She told 8
Carnell's background was ideal for her assignment. It was necessary for her to come to grips with the fundamental differences between the English and the New Zealand county systems, but she was vigorous, friendly, intellectually honest, and adaptable, and she was able to work not only with librarians but also with those representatives of the people upon whom librarians depend. Her brief (outlined in chapter 6) included assistance with a wide range of activities which the NZLA was engaged in, but her most immediate task was to win the support of local authorities for the two important changes in public library practice which the NZLA was promoting: the adoption of free library service and abolition of the subscription system, and the participation by libraries in the circulating stock provided by the CLS.9 Her formal appointment to the staff of the CLS, even though the money to pay her came from the Carnegie Corporation through the NZLA, was important in enabling her to carry out these tasks under a mantle of official approval.
Carnell made an immediate impact on members of the NZLA when she spoke to its conference in February 1940.10 In the cold light of print her address seems rather pedestrian, though her strong personality, together with the high expectations that had been aroused by the appointment of a liaison officer, must have caused a feeling of euphoria. She did, however, make some good points about the kind of collection a library needed to have, or have access to, to provide an adequate service. 'However highly it taxes itself,' she said, 'an independent library serving a small population cannot produce a book fund which totals more than a few hundred pounds, and that is far too small. This matter of what constitutes an adequate book supply ought to be gone into but it never is. … A successful library policy can be based only upon a type of organisation capable of producing an adequate book supply.' In the next few months, after a quick survey of conditions in public libraries, Carnell then threw herself into visits to local body councils and committees to explain and urge the changeover to rate-supported service and participation in the CLS. In this work she The Case for Free Library Service (1940), and she also complemented Alley's own work with local authorities.
'The library scene from the 1930s on … especially and fundamentally in the smaller places, was one of extreme poverty, neglect, and misery,' Alley later said in his taped memoir; 'I don't think there were many places – there were one or two, one thinks of Hawera which had an enterprising librarian and was doing a reasonable job under a subscription condition – but so many of them were cemeteries, as the Munn–Pitt Report remarked about Australian libraries, "cemeteries of old and forgotten books". And the local bodies couldn't have cared less.'11 Carnell picked that financial constraints coloured the reaction, in many towns, to proposals for improvements in library service, and suggested, in a report to the NZLA which was quoted in the annual report of the CLS to 31 March 1941,12 'a pay-collection solution, to hasten the abolition of subscriptions, to clarify ideas as to the purposes for which it is legitimate to spend public money, and to provide an efficient means of satisfying the public appetite for fiction'.
Alley and Carnell, in fact, made a formidable team: Alley with his deep concern for and understanding of heartland New Zealand – and his mana as an All Black; Carnell the kind of forthright Englishwoman who could bring people voluntarily to see reason. And they were helped by NZLA members who supported them locally and by the CLS field librarians, driving the vans, who were always keeping an eye on local trends and giving hints as to what places might be wanting to make a move. Carnell also noted another important factor: 'all the nice, sensible women who strayed into the library scene in the 20's and 30's in the small towns and got on with the work'.13
One of Alley's guiding principles was that 'everyone is interested in something', and throughout his career CLS staff were expected to go to a lot of trouble to find out the interests and hobbies of mayors and councillors, particularly those who were known to have no interest in library service, and to make sure that, in one way or another, appropriate books were on hand to catch the appropriate eye.14 As well, from an early stage the CLS issued lists of 'essential books for the small library', to encourage the development of good locally-owned collections which would be enhanced, rather than supplanted, by books available from the CLS. Around 1940 lists were compiled on philosophy, religion, sociology, natural science, useful arts, agriculture, fine arts, literature and philology, history, travel, and biography.15
In reporting on a visit to Gore in 1941, Carnell wrote: 'The Mayor is definitely in favour of joining the CLS, and I think the same can be said of the Town Clerk and the other members of the committee present. As 16
Not every visit went so smoothly. A field librarian who visited Palmerston in Otago in 1939 reported that it was 'hopeless to expect anything … Unfortunately in some quarters the local 17 but there were even harder nuts to crack elsewhere.
The population limit on boroughs and town boards which were offered service was gradually raised, and in her report for the March 1941 year Carnell recorded visiting 50 libraries serving populations of 10,000 or less. By March 1943, 'A' service was being provided to 43 libraries, and 'B' service to 368 libraries and groups in county areas.18
In September 1939 the NZLA was incorporated by the New Zealand Library Association Act 1939.19 Incorporation was desirable because of the increased amounts of money the association was handling, as well as to help formalise its structure and organisation as its activities increased and brought it into contact with other organisations. 'Who wants the Bill?' asked the Hon. Mr Hamilton in the brief second-reading debate; '20and that seems to have been the substance of the debate.
Alley was appointed convener of the NZLA's committee on library training in February 1939, and was also a member of the committees on library legislation and book buying (which dealt mainly with booksellers' discounts to libraries). The library training committee's brief was to formulate a working scheme for the training of library assistants, especially by means of correspondence courses and summer schools: that is, the apprenticeship type of training which was then favoured in Britain and with which Carnell was familiar. Carnell, as liaison officer, acted in an ex-officio and advisory capacity on all the NZLA's committees and on its council, but the library training committee was one in which she became especially closely involved.
Judith Alley tells of a large chart her father fixed to the wall of the washhouse in Te Anau Road. He had acquired a Beatty washing machine, a mechanical marvel which he adored, and while he was attending to the week's wash on a Saturday he would update the chart, which was a development plan for the CLS. Boxes for the bits that were working were coloured in; other boxes would be removed by a mammoth eraser and 21 Alas, no version of this chart has survived, but its very existence indicates that the CLS did not, as some have suggested, grow like Topsy; from the very first it was assumed that it would undertake responsibilities of national library importance and not remain a small service to small libraries.
The next major development was, however, quite unexpected; 'something different, something nobody counted on'.22 In 1938 and 1939 the New Zealand government suffered a serious exchange crisis, caused partly by reactions to social security legislation and the 'flight of frightened capital', and when the minister of finance, 23 In order to cope with this situation the government imposed strict controls on imports, and in October 1939 a 50 per cent restriction on the importation of books was announced.
Alley, Norrie (NZLA), and McIntosh (behind the scenes) immediately sought a way of exempting libraries from the cut, and on 22 October 1939 Alley and Norrie submitted to the comptroller of customs a 'Recommendation for the establishment of means for safeguarding essential imports of books and other publications for New Zealand libraries'. Defining 'libraries' as public, university, college, and school libraries, and libraries of scientific societies, this document proposed that a bureau, to be administered by the CLS, should act as a clearing-house for the granting of special licences for the import of essential publications to the extent of 50 per cent of each library's expenditure in the March 1938 year; the full amount spent in the 1938 period would then be available, 'provided the additional fifty per cent was spent on non-fiction books and periodicals'.
The reasons given for attaching the bureau to the CLS were that the CLS had the requisite bibliographical and trade publications giving full information about published material; it was a large enough purchaser of books on its own account to be interested in and familiar with current books; it was situated in Wellington and had recognition from the government; and it was in touch with a large number of smaller libraries.24 In the machinery clauses, procedures were outlined for libraries to submit to the bureau lists of books to be purchased under the special licences; the bureau would check them to ascertain whether the titles really were essential, and it would also note on them any titles which had already been ordered by other libraries, so that the applicants could decide whether to go ahead with their orders. This implied, of course, that the bureau would
With the comptroller's sympathetic encouragement, the NZLA council then, on 27 October, appointed a deputation, consisting of Alley, Collins, Dunningham, and Scholefield, to ask Nash to agree to the proposal. Nash, who had been briefed by McIntosh,25 agreed, and so the Central Bureau for Library Book Imports (CBLBI) was established as a new responsibility of the CLS, after the minister of education had agreed to this extension of its role.26 Nash directed that the procedures to be followed should be worked out by the CLS and the Customs Department, and the Customs staff member appointed to act as liaison officer between the two was 27 (to the Prime Minister's Department in 1941).
On the face of it this was a special solution for a special problem, but most of those who were involved in the discussions saw in it important spin-offs, in making possible the start of a national union catalogue (since the bureau would record titles for which special licences were requested) and in the encouragement of inter-library lending and other forms of cooperation. There were some, however, who saw in the machinery that had been created the potential for government censorship of library, and particularly of university library, purchasing. The main opponent within the library profession was H.G. Miller, librarian at Victoria University College, who was not a member of the NZLA council and had not been privy to the council's deliberations.
Alley wrote to libraries early in February 1940 informing them of the exemption that had been agreed to by the government and inviting applications for special licences. He then, on 21 February, made a statement to the annual conference of the NZLA on the negotiations and their outcome. The conference agreed to a motion, put forward by 28 but that was not the end of the matter.
Miller reported to his academic head, T.A. Hunter, in such a way as to make him unfurl the banner of academic freedom. Hunter wrote to the other academic heads; the university librarians outside Wellington defended the actions that had been taken; Alley spoke to Hunter, consulted with Scholefield (who was the new president of the NZLA), and asked for advice from the comptroller of customs. A lot of paper was generated, and some rather unfortunate statements were made. It is not possible to present the whole dossier here, but two examples will suffice to give the flavour of the discussion. The first is from a letter, dated 8 March 1940, from Collins to
However much I try to see through the eyes of Professor Hunter and Mr Miller, I fail to agree with them. I am afraid that either Professor Hunter has misunderstood Mr Miller, or Mr Miller has misinterpreted the facts even more than I had realized. In his letter, for instance, Professor Hunter states that 'the universities, without being consulted, were dragged in' to the scheme; this is quite untrue. Before any scheme for a Central Bureau was mentioned, we were compulsorily deprived of half our funds for direct overseas purchases. And now we have been invited, if we wish, to accept preferential treatment compared with other importers, on conditions which are slightly restrictive but likely to produce great advantages all round. Professor Hunter implies that the scheme will be unsatisfactory because the Director of the Country Library Service does not know our needs. … The point is that a Bureau for rationalizing purchases had to be in Wellington, and it had to be attached to some institution … A government department was the most suitable. Of the three possible ones, the
Country Library Service seemed best, for many reasons. If I remember right, it was I who suggested this, for I, like many librarians, look on the CLS as a potential lending division of a future real national library. Professor Hunter also states that Mr Alley 'is naturally anxious to aggrandize his department'; this is untrue. I can say definitely that Mr Alley was reluctant to accept the extra work and responsibility, but had to admit that, on the long view, the reasons were cogent.29
At about the same time, Collins suggested to Alley a modification under which special libraries would simply report acquisitions, 'trying, in a noncompulsory way, to arrange for the avoidance of unjustifiable duplication'.30 Alley followed this up with the NZLA and the comptroller of customs, but in the meantime a long (two foolscap pages) letter drafted by Hunter and
We feel a good deal of anxiety about the requirement that, so far as these additional licences are concerned, no book may be ordered until it has been approved by the Director of the Country Libraries Service. We are assured that it is not in fact intended by the Government to interfere with our right to decide what books shall come into our libraries; but it seems clear to us that, if we participate in the scheme, we shall be accepting a principle that will make it difficult for us to resist such an interference, if it should be continued in the future by another Government….
We are unable to see how the Director of the Country Libraries Service can be regarded as competent even to advise, much less decide, about the need of a university library for a particular book. Even if he is able to point out that a copy is already in a New Zealand library, how is he competent to decide whether a second copy is justified? …
Our objections to the scheme are … that, in the first place, it commits the university to a principle that would make it difficult in the future to resist interference with academic affairs; and second that, by general admission, the Director of the bureau is not competent to decide whether a book is needed by a university library, that he does not intend to try and that finally, it would not make any difference if he did, since libraries already have licences that are not under his control.
31
This letter was signed by 32
In June 1940 Alley recommended to the comptroller of customs that import licences to the extent of 100 per cent of 1938 figures be made available to the six university libraries (including the two agricultural colleges), 'provided that [they] will in return forward to the Central Bureau full lists of their orders (not waiting till the books are received), these lists to comprise the whole of the libraries' purchases'.33 In October Hunter had pleasure in advising his colleagues that Nash had approved a modified plan along these lines.34
The CBLBI then settled down to a long and useful life, being revived from time to time when governments suffered financial crises, until it was abolished in 1962 when New Zealand adhered to the UNESCO-sponsored Agreement on Importation of Educational, Scientific and Cultural Materials 35
Was all this controversy a storm in a teacup? In a sense it was. The overriding factor was that the government of the day was one which responded readily to a request that import restrictions on books should be softened to the extent that libraries, in which books would be accessible to the public, would be able to maintain their services, and everyone acknowledged this. Most of those who were directly involved failed to see any danger in the machinery that was set up to achieve this objective; indeed, for them, glittering not far off was the prospect of using the machinery for the start of bibliographic controls which were part of their agenda for a national library, and they saw the government's decision as a step in that direction. It is important to realise, too, that although the government of the day, like all governments, was imperfect, it was basically honest and open; we had not, at that time, had bitter experience of governments of a different type. Hunter was prescient when he wrote that 'if we participate in the scheme, we shall be accepting a principle that will make it difficult for us to resist such an interference, if it should be continued in the future by other Governments', but Carnell was more in tune with ordinary thinking of the period when she said, 'This is an excellent example of permanent good emerging from a temporary and rather fatuous evil.'36
Collins, who was often the one who found a way around a problem, proposed a simple solution which the civil servants and the government, to their credit, accepted, so that libraries got their relief and the way was still open to the glittering future. Miller's case is interesting in other ways. His model was the 'scholar-librarian'. He was not noticeably more scholarly than the other university librarians, but he was much less involved than they were in plans for the whole library system, and he was rather loftily disdainful of the idea that a country library service could have anything worthwhile to offer beyond its restricted sphere. For his part, Alley found it hard to accept such attitudes, especially from anyone connected with a university. Mutual antipathy between the two men was a feature of the library landscape for a long time, and perhaps it started here. It was rather strange, since both of them had started their careers as WEA tutors in Canterbury; and it was a great pity, since both of them had qualities which were appreciated by their colleagues.
We shall now take a short break before continuing with the story of the Central Bureau for Library Book Imports and the long-term consequences of its establishment.
For the first two years of the existence of the CLS, Fraser, who held several portfolios, including education and health, retained an extraordinarily close personal interest in this small part of his responsibilities. Even Hall, 37
In August 1939, because of Savage's last illness, Fraser became acting prime minister, and after Savage died in March 1940 he became prime minister. His place as minister of education was taken by H.G.R. Mason, attorney general since 1935, with whom Alley formed another close working relationship. 'Now here was a different person entirely,' said Alley in 1983, 'and it's almost as though one's dreams, one's hopes were answered. Instead of the visionary, the encourager, the leader as 38
Hall raised the question, in August 1940, of returning the CLS to the care of the 39 By this time the director of education was 40 A minute written on this report says, 'The above appointment is confirmed, 10.4.41.'
At the time of the controversy over the Central Bureau for Library Book 41 Another loose end tied up!
The committee which was appointed by the council of the NZLA in February 1940 'to act in an advisory capacity to the Central Bureau for library book imports' consisted of the honorary secretary (Norrie), the honorary assistant secretary (Perry), and the liaison officer (Carnell). This does not suggest that its watchdog role was thought to be desperately urgent, and most of those involved in fact had their minds on the next steps that should be taken to achieve bibliographical progress. 42 Taylor had told him that '
The NZLA council then, on 26 September, appointed a union catalogue committee, consisting of Alley (convener), Scholefield, Barr, Collins, Sandall, Harris, Taylor and Norrie, and empowered it to approach the Carnegie Corporation for financial support if this was appropriate. At its first meeting, on 19 October, which was attended by several other interested parties, the committee resolved 'that a central record of books held by the principal libraries of New Zealand is desirable and that the method of microfilming is approved'. Alley, Scholefield, Taylor, and Norrie were deputed to draw up a request to the Carnegie Corporation, and the committee also recommended that libraries be asked to notify non-fiction accessions to the bureau from January 1941.
On 21 October Miller wrote to Norrie making it clear that, as a nonmember of the committee but present at its meeting, 'I did not vote and do not accept responsibility for its decisions'.43
The Carnegie Corporation agreed, after some correspondence on the methods to be adopted, to provide equipment for the microfilming project, and the minister of education authorised Alley to give all possible 44
In the light of these developments, and no doubt with the knowledge and approval of his library colleagues (or most of them), Alley wrote to Mason in June 1941 a letter which he headed 'Book Resources of New Zealand Libraries. Recommendation that the Council of the New Zealand Library Association be asked to act in an advisory capacity to the Central Bureau for Library Book Imports'.45 'In order that the fullest benefit may be gained from the work of the Central Bureau for Library Book Imports,' he said, 'it is necessary that libraries throughout New Zealand adopt more intensive policies of specialisation in importing stock to cover the needs, especially potential and actual industrial needs, of this country. … When the Bureau was first established the Library Association set up a small advisory committee to give any necessary help to the Bureau and to watch the interests of libraries. … The needs of the situation would be met if you would formally invite the Council of the New Zealand Library Association to act in an advisory capacity to the Central Bureau … and to submit proposals to you for the most economic way of ensuring that the necessary books and periodicals enter the country and are made available to the greatest number of those who need them.'
Mason agreed to this proposal and invited the NZLA, in a letter which he had asked Alley to draft, 'to extend the advisory help it now gives to the Central Bureau for Library Book Imports by proposing means whereby (a) at least one copy of every publication of any importance in the English language reaches this country and (b) serious readers everywhere in New Zealand have free access to all such publications'.46 At its next meeting the NZLA council established a New Zealand Book Resources Committee, to 47 Its membership included the familiar names of Barr, Collins, Dunningham, Harris, Norrie, Scholefield, and Taylor, and it absorbed the committees on inter-library loans and the union catalogue. When this decision was reported to Mason, he was asked to approve the payment of actual and reasonable expenses for members to attend meetings, and he agreed to this request.48 At a meeting of the committee at which he met the members, he said that he knew from his own experience the value which a union catalogue would be to all engaged in research of any description, and added that 'any recommendations which you make regarding the ways in which the Government can further the development of New Zealand libraries will receive very careful and most sympathetic consideration from me and from the Government'.49
The terms of reference of the book resources committee enabled it to contemplate activities a good way beyond those which had been placed before the minister. They included some which turned out, as time went on, to be impractical, but the enthusiasm with which they were contemplated, and which was captured by Carnell in New Zealand Libraries in December 1941,50 is a measure of both the commitment of librarians of the time and the strong relationship which had developed between the library profession and the government. The book resources committee remained for many years a semi-government organisation within the NZLA, a fact which was recognised by the payment of meeting expenses, and this fact also meant that Alley had to continue to be its convener, the vital link between the two bodies.
That series of developments – the Central Bureau for Library Book Imports and the very quick moves towards the involvement of the CLS at the centre of work on national book resources – was quite unexpected; or rather, it happened unexpectedly soon. The next major development, on the other hand, which came to fruition in 1942, had been eagerly awaited. It was a move to address the glaring weaknesses, in most parts of the country, in library services for children.
Munn and Barr, in their 1934 report, said that 'The four large cities and a few of the secondary cities are making an honest attempt to give some service to children. There is no New Zealand librarian who has had any training in library work with children, but several of them show a natural aptitude for it. … Cities as large as New Plymouth, Napier, Gisborne, and Hamilton can claim no more than a gesture towards work with children. … The failure to grasp the importance of service to children seriously 51
In their recommendations, Munn and Barr said that 'In all new plans of library development fuller attention should be given to the children', and that 'Efforts should be made to improve the libraries of primary, secondary and technical schools and to establish small permanent collections of reference books of value to pupils and masters. Improved financial provision should be made by the 52
The selection of 53
At this point we should settle on a name for the
Alley was, of course, well aware of the importance placed on children's library service by the Munn–Barr report, and Dorothy White, who was quite a political person, was well aware of Alley's importance in making possible the extension to the whole country of the kind of work she had been doing in Otago. When she spoke to him in Christchurch in August 1937, at the time that plans for the CLS were being gestated, they discussed 54 and in May 1938, before the CLS was even on the road, Alley was writing to her: 'About the whole question of Junior work. I am still doing nothing. Are you very fed up with me for this? … I still think our original idea is best. To instal the machinery side of the C.L.S. and then wail loudly that nothing is being done about Junior work, and that we must have you or someone added and put in charge for N.Z.'55
Alley was, however, discussing possible ways of establishing a service to children with the minister and within the 56 White advised Alley that there had to be a service to schools first and that the strengthening of public library service had to follow,57 and when he sent the director of education copies of Carnell's reports he also enclosed a rough draft of a comprehensive service on a dominion basis, 'for which 58
A typical discussion at this time was one between Alley (with Carnell) and Mason which occurred in April 1941, of which the following extracts give the flavour:
Alleymentioned problems that had occurred over the Canterbury travelling library for schools, due partly to loss of staff because of uncertainty about the future.
Minister: 'What about a scheme that would absorb them … You have ideas of a scheme – what is your timetable?
Alleysaid there were two possibilities: CLS or theCanterbury Public Library to be involved. 'It is for you to decide whether the Government should provide more through the Department or our Service, and whether it should be centralized.'
Minister: 'If your depot [in Christchurch] do it, aren't you doing just what these people are doing except that you are more skilled in the work?' … 'It seems to me the more you can centralise the thing the better. Has Hamilton a good library?'
Alley: 'Not up to standard. …'
Minister: 'There has been a lot of talk about a general library service. I thought there would be some scheme worked out.'
Alley: 'A good many have been worked out, but mainly only exploratory.
The only scheme the Government has is that which resulted in the establishment of the 59
By this stage things were moving fairly quickly, though. On 28 May 1941 Alley sent to the minister a set of recommendations which included the following:
- A grant of £10,000 for a school library service, over and above previous appropriations, the money to go to the CLS for the purchase of suitable books, etc.
- Appointment of a children's librarian to the CLS staff.
- Schools in areas with a population of less than 10,000 to be offered a supply of books in return for certain payments, except in Otago and Taranaki, where books would be provided for existing circulating schemes, the population limit to be removed later.
- The Canterbury travelling library for rural schools to be placed under the CLS from 1 July 1941.
- Public libraries in Auckland, Wanganui,
Palmerston North , Christchurch, Timaru, and Dunedin to be asked to act as district centres.60
The file copy of this letter has a minute, in Alley's handwriting: 'Hon. Minister approved & issued direction for scheme to go ahead & Estimates altered accordingly. 30/5/41.' A formal recommendation for Budget purposes, 'for the purpose of starting a Schools Library Scheme to be conducted by the 61 was sent to the minister by the director of education at the end of July; it was envisaged that the service would start on 1 April 1942. This separate recommendation would have been necessary because the cost of the New Zealand Libraries in October 1941, gave most of the credit for the investigation of ways and means of improving school libraries to the 62
63 The selection of books was a major task, but it was made easier by the fact that the foundation stock had already been acquired – chosen from an important piece of work that White had done for the NZLA: Junior Books: a recommended list for boys and girls, published in 1940 by the NZLA, was a 95-page annotated list to which White brought the discriminating taste of her later, better-known books.
In 1950 a librarian working in the SLS who had been a teacher in the early 1940s wrote a piece for Education, a periodical published by the School Publications Branch of the Department of Education, to draw teachers' attention to the services provided by the 64 This is what was started in 1942.
War resumed during the time that all these developments were occurring. It is known that the government had been consulting with various supporting agencies, such as the YMCA, during the late '30s about their state of preparedness for picking up the roles they had been able to put aside barely 20 years earlier. It is not known whether Alley had been involved in these discussions, but whether or not he had, he acted very quickly after war was declared on 3 September 1939. On 12 October he wrote to the NZLA saying that, with the approval of the minister, the facilities of the CLS would be extended to military camps. It was proposed that the National Advisory Committee for Patriotic Purposes establish a library sub-committee, on which the NZLA would be represented, and the association was asked to co-operate by providing unused books through its member libraries and by helping, through its branches and through libraries, to collect books by public book drives. It was intended that the association should be identified as an active participant, in order to demonstrate its value as a national organisation.65
The NZLA responded enthusiastically to this invitation, and Norrie was appointed to represent it on the camp library committee. Appeals for books were broadcast to the public, and libraries acted as receiving centres. Other organisations, such as the Returned Services' Association and the Boy Scouts Association, were also recruited to the enterprise. The central administration of the scheme was placed in the hands of the CLS, but 66 Alley himself worked nights sorting books in the basement of the 67 and he spent part of the Christmas period in Christchurch working with 68 In an article published in May 1940 the New Zealand Free Lance said that 40,000 books and 60,000 periodicals had been collected at depots in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch: 'Under Mr. Alley's resourceful direction, this ambitious wartime library service overlooks very little and forgets still less. It has remembered, among other things, to lay down the golden rule for those still anxious to give books that they should not forward any book which they would not welcome for themselves.'69
In his annual report for the March 1940 year Alley said that, in addition to co-ordinating the national collection and distribution of gifts of books and periodicals for camps and troop-ships, the CLS had also lent its own books to camp libraries where proper library facilities were available, and had facilitated the use, where possible, of the NZLA's inter-library loan scheme.70
One of the little problems, invisible to the public, that Alley and his colleagues had to cope with in ensuring that army, navy, and air force personnel were not cut off from the advantages of library service is revealed by a brief exchange of correspondence between Barr and Alley in 1942. Barr applied for an oil fuel licence to enable him to do some work in connection with the War Library Service, and was turned down by the district oil fuel controller. He appealed for help to Alley, who wrote to the commissioner of transport recommending that Barr should be allowed 25 gallons to visit and assess the work being done in libraries at the RNZAF stations at Hobsonville and Whenuapai and at the Papakura military camp, and the authorisation was given.71 This was not bureaucratic officiousness – supplies of oil fuel, which were transported in very dangerous conditions at this stage of the war, had to be husbanded carefully – but it illustrates the kind of obstacle that had to be dealt with, in many activities, at that time.
From the beginning of the war, in September 1939, heavy censorship was imposed on all kinds of information and publicity. It was necessary but it could easily become unreasonable, and, in the case of the importation of books and periodicals, it encouraged good keen customs officials to make decisions which defied reason – decisions, moreover, which were themselves concealed under the veil of censorship. In order to bring some common sense into this area of censorship, 72 called 'an ad hoc and invisible committee
In a very few years, Alley had made a great impact on the profession he had joined much later than many of his colleagues. The close relationships he had formed with key government politicians and with influential public servants, in carrying out policies to which they were committed, gave him something of a charmed life, and he had also been accepted by the leaders of the library movement (a revealing term which they often used) as one of their own. He did, however, tend at times to hold his cards very close to his chest, causing some uneasiness. He was still, in the library world, the single general (good or bad) in the old 2–3–2 scrum of his South African days, able to carry points by force of character without necessarily carrying everyone with him.
In September 1940 concerns about the growing strength of the CLS and its relationship with the library world generally, and with the NZLA in particular, were raised with the honorary secretary of the NZLA, Norrie, by The Case for Free Library Service. At the time of his approach to Norrie he was a vice-president of the NZLA, and in line to become president in February 1941.
Perry was asked by Norrie to discuss Prosser's concerns with Alley, and after this discussion he drafted a letter, which he showed to Alley in draft, for Norrie to send to Alley. The main points in this letter were the following:
With reference to the Assistant Secretary's consultation with you on Saturday morning, 21st September, during which, in the interests of harmony and to avoid any possibility of future misunderstanding, you were good enough to inform him of your attitude towards certain current developments affecting libraries. I should like first of all to express the hope that the harmony which has hitherto existed between the Country Library Service and the Association may continue … You are fully aware of my personal admiration for the work which you are doing … much can
be done by an alliance between the two organisations, which neither could so effectively accomplish alone …
He then asked Alley to confirm his position on the questions at issue, which he set out as follows:
Overlapping [between the CLS and the NZLA] is inevitable in that the services rendered by the two bodies are not entirely distinct. There is, however, no intention on the part of the
Country Library Service to attempt to supersede the Association. It is appreciated that the motions underlying the proposed nomination of a Cabinet Minister as President of the Association are (a) possible benefit to the Association during the coming year, and (b) a desire on the part of the Service to exploit the system of Government support under the exceptionally favourable circumstances which may be assumed to exist during the same period. The principle that the Presidency should be an annual office is reaffirmed; and any suggestion that the nomination is to be put forward to increase the weight of Government representation on the Council of the Association, or as a step towards making the Association in any way subservient to the Government, or bringing it under Government control, is expressly disclaimed.There is no present intention on the part of the Government to subject public libraries themselves to any system of national control …
… warm appreciation of the fullness of the comments and assurances you have given me …
73
Alley wrote to Norrie confirming his agreement with the statements set out in Norrie's letter;74 Prosser was elected president in February 1941; and no cabinet minister was ever president of the NZLA. The correspondence was placed on a file labelled 'State Aid and Control of Libraries'.
Two years later 75 Perry, in a minute to this letter, wrote: '
Among the general public there were some who saw in the CLS and all it stood for not only government control of libraries, but a communist plot to subvert the minds of the people. Alley had encountered this kind of reaction in his Canterbury days. In 1935, for instance, 76 Ten years later Alley was writing to a public figure in Oamaru who had encountered some criticism of the CLS: 'There is absolutely no ground for saying that this Service is "leftish" as our book stock represents, as you say, all kinds of thought. We do not buy from the Right Book Club, or from the Left Book Club, although we buy from ordinary retailers books by authors who write for both these clubs.'77
Nevertheless, there was no upwelling of outrage about the CLS. In Parliament, apart from the responsible ministers who were understandably delighted to have an achievement to talk about which was generally thought to be uncontroversial, the only members who spoke about the CLS, invariably with approval, tended to be Labour backbenchers from rural or semi-rural seats.78 A considered view was given in an editorial in The Press in August 1943, in which it was said:
The completion of five years' work is recorded in the annual report of the
Country Library Service , with the modest comment that, while much remains to be done before New Zealand has an adequate library system, it is a 'hopeful sign' that the service has been able to grow in usefulness during the abnormal conditions of war. Something should be added to this. It should be said that theCountry Library Service , which cost little to found and costs little to maintain, which works quietly, out of the glare of publicity and controversy, but with steady, constructive social effect, is an established success. It rapidly passed the stage when it was itself an experiment; it has not ceased to be, and it is to be hoped it will never cease to be, a centre of experimental effort. Some of this effort has been called forth by direct war-time needs. Some has been stimulated by the difficulty of developing its primary programme in war; but the development has been real and instructive.79
A few months later the Dunedin Evening Star called the CLS 'the outstanding success in adult education of recent years … which has succeeded beyond all bounds in putting numerous worthwhile books into hundreds of rural houses and many small-town libraries', and praised 'the skill and energy of the director … and his technique in both working independently and also making use of existing institutions.'80
Apart from the book resources committee, in respect to which he had a semi-official role, one of Alley's strongest NZLA interests was in the library training (later library education) committee, of which he was convener from 1939 to 1955, with one break in the 1943/44 year (when
Means must be devised to raise the general and professional standards of librarians and assistant librarians. It is recommended that for all urban public library systems and all university college libraries the matriculation examination of the University of New Zealand, or its equivalent, should be the minimum required for appointment to a library position. In addition every encouragement should be given to young library assistants (1) to acquire a university degree, (2) to study for the professional examinations of the Library Association (London), or to take a course in librarianship at the Library School of the University of London or one of the American universities … As soon as the general level of salaries can be raised, only university graduates should be eligible for appointment to professional staffs.
81
This recommendation had been taken up by the societies of librarians which were formed in 1936, and which soon became branches of the NZLA. In August 1936 Perry wrote to the Society of Otago Librarians, suggesting that a correspondence course might be organised and saying: 'I feel that there are now enough trained men82 in New Zealand to undertake the work of setting and correcting correspondence courses for a comparatively small number of students'; and the Otago librarians reported in 1937 in favour of the idea, adding that 'it is less important to have library examinations than to provide a course of instruction designed to equip librarians with such training as is fundamental to their profession'.83
The question was discussed anxiously over the next few years.84 By 1940 Alley's library training committee was committed to organising correspondence courses, and Carnell was deeply involved in implementing them. The first course to start, in 1941, was one for a children's librarian's About Books for Children (1946).
In January 1941 the NZLA council received a preliminary draft, prepared by Carnell, of a syllabus for a general training course. The syllabus was approved by the council in November 1941, and the first annual intake of 42 students was admitted in August 1942. The course was designed for students who were already employed in libraries and whose educational level was university entrance. It was laid out in two sections: one, taking two and a half years, leading to a certificate, followed by another, taking three years, leading to a diploma. Notes for the certificate course were written by Carnell, and students were assigned to tutors, who marked and commented on regular assignments. An innovative feature, which sprang from Carnell's fertile mind, was a record of their own reading which students were required to keep for 50 weeks and submit to a supervisor. This was in place of a more formal paper in a subject such as English literature, to be found in similar courses elsewhere, and was an acknowledgement that librarians could have very varied interests, all of which could be valuable in their work – the important thing was to discover whether they could comment intelligently and with discrimination on what they read in the ordinary course of their lives. As Alley has said, it was based on 'the idea that people could not just pass themselves off as librarians unless they had a real live contact, an association with books and with reading'.85
It was a very ambitious programme for such a small profession to undertake. At first, with only the first annual intake to be coped with, it was daunting enough, but after five years, even allowing for the probability that many students would not proceed to the diploma, the fugue, in full voice, either would have been unbearably majestic or would have fallen in on itself. In 1942 it was possible for the association to make a bold start, but, even so, by May of that year Alley was facing problems over the appointment of tutors. Writing to members of the committee, he said:
A crisis has arisen regarding the general course. You will have noticed on page 203 of the April number of
New Zealand Librariesthe note regarding tutors. Up to the time of writing there has been no response at all. The number of students who have applied is 41. It seems fairly certain that, even if one or two last minute applications are received from suitable persons, we are not going to have enough tutors to carry through Part 1, much less Part 2, of the general course. It is true that no attempt has been made to bring pressure to bear upon likely people to undertake tutoring,but under present circumstances is it either fair or wise to do so? … In ordinary times we have a moral claim upon the services of librarians who have had the benefit of study and travel abroad, and at the end of the war there should be no difficulty in finding a dozen suitable tutors, but with some in camp or likely to be called up soon, and others short staffed and preoccupied with E.P.S. or Home Guard work, it is physically impossible for most of the people to undertake extra work of this kind. 86
Morale must have reached its lowest point just then. The course did get under way, though a report presented to the NZLA council in January 1944 said that 'The course has only proceeded with difficulty.'87 One could also say that it had only proceeded because of the superhuman dedication of a few overburdened people, including Barr, Collins, Dunningham, and Harris, who were among the first tutors. It is difficult to imagine how the impetus could have been kept up, especially in the years before newlyqualified librarians became available for tutoring duties, without some change of approach. This did happen, but before we get to that we must look at some of the other things that were going on then, both in the library world and in Alley's own life. The context was one that would have overwhelmed a more settled and comfortable profession.
In February 1942 Alley was elected honorary secretary of the NZLA, and in September of that year the association's office moved from the ex officio a member of every committee of the NZLA council, and the union catalogue, which had moved with the association's office, started to occupy an increasing amount of the CLS's space – the early trickle gradually became a lusty stream, and finally a roaring torrent while card cabinets were still in use. Increasingly, also, distinctions between the CLS and its director and the NZLA and its honorary secretary became somewhat blurred. This did not matter in 1942, but at times it did later.
Carnell continued to work with public libraries, to spread the free library message and to link those in smaller towns with the CLS. In a report on her work in 1941 she noted that 15 libraries had adopted free library service in that year, but said, 'It is significant that there are only three libraries (Dunedin, Timaru, 88
By this time Carnell was concerned that wartime conditions were making it increasingly difficult for her to carry out her responsibilities, and she and Alley had begun to think that a way should be found to conserve the funds provided by the Carnegie Corporation until they could be used more effectively. Writing to Dunningham in February 1942, she said that Alley had discussed with her and with the central executive of the NZLA the possibility of getting her designated assistant director of the CLS, or something like that, and having the salary paid from government funds. 'This would be a comfortable solution in that the Carnegie dollars would be saved (by no means such a trivial point as I gather you think). I could be used for War Library Service, writing training schemes and any other job which seemed useful, and personal ambition would be gratified.'89 Dunningham's response was, 'so long as you are remaining with the C.L.S. I should personally be happy'.90 This seems to have been the general view, and Carnell was appointed assistant director of the CLS from 1 April 1942. In informing the NZLA of the appointment, Alley said that she 'will continue to hold the position of Liaison Officer between this Service and the N.Z. Library Association. Her salary and travelling expenses will not, however, be recoverable from the Association after 31st March next.'91
Despite his preoccupations with the CLS and the NZLA, Alley did have another life at this time. In April or May 1941 The Farmer in New Zealand, by G.T. Alley and D.O.W. Hall, was published by the The Farmer in New Zealand was late in appearing.
Alley was commissioned to write the book in July 1938. The committee which selected him included
In a memorandum to the chosen authors, Duff said that the books should be surveys rather than histories, should not be longer than about 30,000 words, should present a new view of the field covered rather than paraphrase or epitomise existing narratives, and should be held together by a common idea. In writing to Alley, he offered the agreed fee of £100, which was equivalent to about 20 per cent of Alley's salary at that time, and asked him to agree to deliver his manuscript within a year, an undertaking which Alley agreed to.92 In May 1939, though, when McCormick, who had replaced Duff as editor, inquired about progress, Alley had to say that pressure of work was causing delays. By the middle of 1940, when a manuscript had still not appeared, David Hall, as associate editor, joined Alley in a desperate effort to complete the book on time,93 and the text was sent to the printer in January 1941. Reporting this finally successful outcome to the secretary of the Public Service Commission, Heenan endorsed a recommendation that the fee should be split between Alley and Hall. 'Mr. Hall has done a vast amount of work,' he said, 'which alone has made the completion of this survey possible, and has done it to the complete satisfaction of Mr. McCormick and the rest of the Editorial staff.' Alley got £60, Hall got £10, and the rest was held back because much of Hall's work was done in office time.94
The Farmer in New Zealand is an interesting book for its time and, to one who knew Alley better than he knew Hall, it seems, in its independent approach firmly based on fact, to reflect Alley's way of thinking. An anonymous review (possibly by Duff) in the New Zealand Listener95 said that it gave 'no duplication of anything that has ever been written in New Zealand, but an entirely new light and line of thought'. This reviewer highlighted a number of comments on Maori farming before the Troubles (called 'the Maori Wars' in the book): that the Maori were producing food cheaply enough to disturb the white settlers' market; that the Waikato 'ninety years ago' was 'one great wheatfield'; that in the
This reviewer was fixated on Maori farming. Alley was, of course, ahead of his time in drawing attention to early Maori achievements, but the distinguishing feature of the book is really its selection of illuminating
It is appropriate to consider how far the
New Zealand Company settlers had available to them the basic necessities for successful farming. The basic necessities may be crudely defined as access to land, with security of tenure implicit, a reasonably realistic technique, an assured market, and energy and initiative. It is customary to credit the pioneers with the lastmentioned qualities almost by definition. This is perhaps due to the habit of contemplating exclusively the successful examples. (p.34)The second generation of large graziers rarely inherited either the charm or the education of their fathers, but at least they produced an increasing quantity of wool. (p.56)
Since [the early days] the farmer in this country has become more preoccupied with the prices of his products and the costs of producing them. But he is not wholly a business man, any more than a doctor, who lives by disease, surreptitiously propagates it. … Many farmers are as vividly aware of the beauty of their surroundings as they are of the growth of feed on the portion of the landscape they happen to own. (p.127)
Published at the subsidised price of five shillings, some of the centennial surveys were valued at $30 or $40 70 years later. The Farmer in New Zealand is not one of these. Its value is in the book itself, not in its secondhand price.
Alley-as-Farmer was also involved in another project in 1941. His brother Rewi, who by then was one of the most effective organisers of the vast Gung Ho industrial co-operative movement in the part of China that was out of the reach of the Japanese invaders, wanted some stud sheep to be purchased from New Zealand so that they could be used for improving the standard of stock in Kansu (now Gansu) province. The sheep were ordered by 96 and Geoff interested the firm of Wright Stephenson and Company in arranging the purchase; 150 animals of various breeds were shipped to Rangoon early in December 1941. A few days later the Pacific war erupted and the ship was diverted to Calcutta, which had no road link to China.97 Communication with China was disrupted, but in 1944 Rewi told Geoff that he had heard that the sheep had ended up somewhere in Tibet.98 The attempt to introduce new genes to the flocks of Gansu had to be postponed until after the war.
Back in suburban Wellington, the Alleys' fourth and final child,
Both the Alley parents were active in the school community. Geoff, who was a member of the Hataitai School committee for several years from June 1940, helped to build a library within the school and was supportive of the few school events that took place in the war years. Euphan formed some good friendships with women with whom she would sit in the sun down at the beach while the younger children played, and she also made a rewarding foray into the playcentre movement. Geoff brought home children's books when they started coming in for the and, as a very responsible job, to take the New Yorker up to Mr Fraser's office.99
For a time during the war Alley was a member of a committee which was concerned with imports of anti-war publications. No record of its deliberations has been found, but Alley's attitude might be gauged from his comment on the help given to the committee by 100
In November 1942 Alley, together with other officers of the
For the past 3 years the Service has administered the War Library Service acting in conjunction with the National Patriotic Fund Board … The Service itself is of great importance, in peace or war, and should be maintained, and, as opportunity offers, developed. It has become in a little over 4 years, one of the largest libraries in New Zealand, and it will in time be the largest, serving nearly half the total population of New Zealand.
Arrangements for Replacement: The Director of the Country Library Service considers that the Assistant Director of the Service, Miss E.J. Carnell, is fully capable of carrying on the work in his absence. He knows of no other person to whom the responsibility could be given. There has been a serious loss of male staff to the armed forces, however, and it is essential that the book van distributing services now operating be kept running and that one or two male officers are available at Headquarters.
Two factors which would need consideration in connection with Carnell's availability were then mentioned: (1) the likelihood that work she had begun, especially the NZLA training courses and the establishment of the sine die was requested for Alley, and army reserve transport was suggested as alternative service.101 These requests must have been granted, for in a curriculum vitae prepared in 1944 Alley gave his status in regard to military service thus: 'I am "On Leave Without Pay", Certificate No L 24381, as from 12 November 1942, from Area 5 Wellington, and am Company Sergeant Major of No 17 Lines of Communication Motor Transport Company, in Reserve.'102 Judith's impression was that 'his thing was to get Wellington evacuated'.103
The outcome of the appeal was pretty certain, considering that Alley was in the middle of negotiations over the future of library services as part of the educational activities of the armed forces. By mid-1942 the fact that New Zealand was the only English-speaking country which had no scheme for education in the army had led to a decision by the government to establish an Army Education and Welfare Service (AEWS) under the direction of a senior inspector in the 104 The AEWS officially opened in March 1943. Some months earlier Ball and Alley had met together and then, on 23 November 1942, with the War Cabinet, to consider the relationship between the existing War Library Service, in which the CLS and the NZLA were involved, and the AEWS. Following these discussions the War Cabinet decided '(a) that the Government should approach the National Patriotic Fund Board to have their war library interests transferred to the Army Education and Welfare Service, (b) that Colonel Ball and
- that the advice and recommendations of the New Zealand Library Association and the Country Library Service should be fully considered in the determination of Army library policy;
- that the machinery of the
Country Library Service , suitably extended to meet wartime needs, should be the chief means for carrying out library services for the armed forces;- that the Library Staff Officer, when appointed, should carry out the duties of liaison officer between the Army Education Service on the one hand and the Country Library Service and the New Zealand Library Association on the other;
- that the Library Staff Officer should also be designated Library Liaison Officer and be recognized as such by the Country Library Service and the New Zealand Library Association.
An important element was that, since the library service was to be run by the CLS, it was accepted that it would cover the navy and the air force as well as the army.
When these decisions and recommendations were referred to the Treasury, it reported favourably, to the extent of £17,500, with the proviso that after the war the CLS 'should take over the books, etc, at valuation for their normal purposes, the War Expenses Account should be reimbursed accordingly'105 – this happened in the 1945/46 year, when the CLS spent £21,379 on books, including AEWS surplus stock, against £14,000 voted, the extra amount being a useful windfall for the CLS since its vote for the next year remained unaffected at £17,000.106
In this matter Alley was of course wearing two hats, CLS and NZLA, a situation which sometimes caused confusion over the next decade until he ceased to be honorary secretary of the NZLA, but which also, in the favourable circumstances of the time, enabled him to steer a number of important projects to safe berths. Over the AEWS he received strong support from all sections of the library world.107
Dunningham was recruited from Dunedin to take the post of library staff officer, with the rank of captain, and Carnell became first subaltern on the library establishment of the AEWS. Dunningham was in his element: an entirely new library service, covering the whole country without the complications of local body boundaries and rivalries, based on the CLS 108 An early CLS staff member recalled Dunningham as 'that bouncy guy',109 and this was undoubtedly one of the pinnacles of his career. After the war it was not possible to replicate the organisation of the AEWS library service, but the experience provided good lessons for all libraries on the distribution and circulation of library materials.110 At the time its success enhanced the reputation of the CLS in the official mind.
By 1945 the staff of the CLS numbered 52.111 In the beginning there were the field librarians, who visited the participating libraries and groups, changed their books, and advised on how to use the service; and the headquarters staff, who selected, bought, and catalogued the books, sent them to the vans, and dealt with those that were returned. As time went on the scope of the work widened. The population limit for boroughs which could receive service was raised to 15,000 and by 1946 there were 65 of them, in addition to 504 rural groups, 69 hamper groups and 674 postal borrowers. The SLS opened branches in various towns. A request service for participating libraries was developed, together with subject loan collections which were provided in addition to the standard scale of loans, and in 1943 the CLS became the clearing-house for inter-library requests from all types of libraries. A mechanism was established for circulating regular lists of books which had been requested on interloan and had not been found in the union catalogue or by checking other Wellington libraries. Books that were not reported after these lists were circulated were considered for purchase by the CLS, which began consciously to build up a headquarters stock which was designed to bear part of the interloan load. Thought was being given to service to hospitals and prisons, and to developing an industrial and technical service.
In the long run, a long run which had been foreseen from the start, if only through a glass, darkly, the service was going to change out of recognition, but the heart of it in the 1940s was still the
The blood-stream of New Zealand's present rural library system is the 4,000-mile route followed by the
Country Library Service book-vans, one in each Island, in the course of their fourteen weeks' tours, thrice yearly.Nearly 350 Libraries of all sizes and types in rural districts and in towndistricts and boroughs of up to 10,000 inhabitants are supplied from the vans, which in turn are continually fed from Wellington. The possibilities of van-service as available at present are fairly obvious. Local librarians are afforded a wide choice in their book selection (the vans carry about 1,500 volumes). Personal contact between local and travelling librarians may be of material benefit. The travelling librarian is enabled to compare and correlate the methods, standards and holdings of the libraries visited and should be able to gain information and experience which can be gained in no other convenient way and which can be made available to all libraries concerned. 112
Mercer then went on to describe the weaknesses of libraries in rural New Zealand which he had observed – in knowledge of the range of books available, in the standard (or absence) of staffing, in support from local authorities – all of which he did his best to ameliorate in the course of a long career. He was typical of the kind of person who was attracted to work in the CLS.
When the staff was small Alley presided over it like a large and gentle, but somewhat silent, giant. 113 Members of the staff were called upon to give little talks at staff meetings on topics like book selection, the function of the catalogue, reference questions that do arise and might arise in a small library that is working in co-operation with the CLS, pseudonyms, the role of the library in wartime, library equipment, and subject entries in the subject catalogue and in the classified catalogue.114 Wright remembers Alley as very upright in the tradition of the civil service at that time, and as one who gave a good deal of latitude to those whom he trusted. Interestingly enough, Alley, in speaking of Shelley, said: 'His possible weakness [in administration] was perhaps a result of a virtue. He tended to leave his colleagues to themselves – to get on with it. Sometimes it would have been better if he had been more directly involved – but again he had a strong belief in independence for anyone entrusted with a task.'115 That could have been written about Alley himself.
Wright was one whom Alley trusted. He sent her to Christchurch in 1943 to establish a depot for the despatch and receipt of books, and then again in 1945 to set up the first full-scale branch of the CLS outside 116 Wright never let him down; those who did found, eventually, that they could not get away with it for ever.
At a very early stage Alley insisted that the salary scale for men and women should be the same, and his attitudes in such matters are also exemplified by the fact that, under his management as honorary secretary, the names of members attending NZLA meetings were given as initials plus surnames, with no indication of gender or marital status. One associate thought his influence was pivotal for women at a time when women were beginning to move into the professions.117 He was also well disposed towards staff members who had physical or social disabilities, and in this respect he anticipated the era when it was thought that special commissioners were needed to ensure justice.
With all his pluses and a few minuses, Alley built up a staff in the 1940s which had a very strong esprit de corps, which felt that it was doing worthwhile and important work, and which was encouraged to think creatively and flexibly. As an example of the kind of approach he encouraged, there is this memorandum which he gave to the librarian in charge of the CLS Christchurch office, on the question of eligibility for the 'D' (postal) service:
Each [application] is judged on its own merits and consideration is given to the individual circumstances. The general rule is that anyone at a distance of 10 miles or over from the nearest Public Library, unless on a railway line, is eligible. In some cases this distance is too far; consideration must be given to type of country, and possibility of transport. If nearer than ten miles, or accessible by rail, the applicant is asked to join the nearest public library and is given details of the interloan service when the library is not linked with WCl [CLS Wellington] and of the Request service when the library is linked with WCl … [and on special cases:] e.g. there is one borrower at Carterton because the librarian refuses to use interloan'.
118
Alley regarded the role of the CLS as being not only to provide a service but also to encourage and assist improvements in the service provided by individual libraries, a role for which organising librarian positions were created as time went on, to follow up, in a more intensive way, the kind of advice and assistance that was offered by field librarians. He made this role clear in his annual reports; in 1944, for instance, after commenting that progress by participating libraries was uneven, he said: 'Local authorities, 119
In the same report Alley said: 'At the earliest favourable time it is proposed to develop this Service on a regional basis. Instead of separate services for city and country it is proposed, with the co-operation of the city library authorities, to combine the services of town and country in one regional service. A strong National Library Service is essential to coordinate the work of such regions.' This was a rather surprising statement, but it followed several years of discussion, in which Alley had taken an increasingly active role without always being able to control its direction, of the structure that might best meet the needs of the country for the delivery of public library service. During that time the CLS had been established as a central government organisation which initially had very little to do with libraries in the larger centres, and it had been a great success within its limited brief. But members of the library profession kept harking back to the Munn–Barr recommendation that district library organisations should be set up, by co-operative arrangements between local authorities. This model came to be known as the regional library one, although Munn and Barr had used 'regional' in a different sense. Some thought that regional libraries should be supported by the CLS; others that they should supplant it. Most ignored the warnings of those, like McIntosh, who thought that co-operation between consenting local authorities, in the absence of an indissoluble union, would be very difficult to achieve and even more difficult to maintain over libraries, which did not have as high a profile in the public mind as they had in the minds of librarians.
So there had been years of enthusiastic and enjoyable thinking and arguing about the ideal library system for New Zealand, punctuated by the writing of reports on various ways of achieving the desired end. Enthusiasm for the regional idea was particularly strong in Dunedin, where the Otago branch of the NZLA was a lively forum for the discussion of library policies and a source of numerous reports.120 Leaders in the branch were the two charismatic senior librarians, 121 At about the same time he was helping
By 1944 the idea of 'regional library service' had fixed itself firmly in many library minds as the kind of library organisation which should be put in place as soon as possible. It had been reinforced by a report on the public library service of Great Britain, written by
The last years of the war were a time of post-war planning in many parts of the world, and New Zealand was not immune from the urge to plan for a better future. The library world, which had been in planning mode for some time, had recently had yet another excitement in the success, for a short time, of the AEWS library service, with Dunningham in operational command, Carnell by his side, and Alley as sponsor, and the novel experience of a library service run from a centre, without local bodies being involved except by supporting it. By 1943 it was time for all these plans and experiences to be brought together.
In August 1943 the NZLA council set up an interim planning committee to set the scene for the post-war era. Convened by Carnell, it included Perry and (nominated by the Wellington branch) Scholefield, W.J. Gaudin (a city councillor) and ex officio. At an early meeting some members of the committee brought forward two drafts outlining possible lines of development. Labelled 'Plan A' and 'Plan B', neither of these was endorsed by the committee. Instead, several librarians were asked to examine them,122 and their comments, together with the plans, were then published in New Zealand Libraries for wider discussion.123
Plan A was an ambitious one, providing for a Ministry of Libraries
Plan B was designed more as an extension of the existing structure of the
Plan A was prepared by Carnell and Robertson.124 It is not clear who prepared Plan B, but Alley was probably behind it, with the support of other members of the committee. On the face of it, Plan B seemed to provide for a continuation of a central government scheme, whereas the structure proposed in Plan A provided for a bottom-up approach, with each level of management appointing members to the next level above. But Perry pointed out a major weakness of Plan A when he said that he was 'unable to persuade myself that centralised (i.e. Consolidated Fund) finance can be satisfactorily combined with the form of local control suggested'. Perry also commented that 'Neither of the schemes appears to take any account of possible local authority reform to provide larger units of local government. There appears to be no prospect of such reform in the immediate future, but I believe the problem must be faced immediately after the war.'125
Barr thought that neither plan was sufficiently comprehensive – 'i.e. they do not deal with the whole of the New Zealand Library Service – Public, University, Governmental and Departmental Libraries. Semi-public libraries, such as the Royal Society of New Zealand and its branches, are libraries left out of consideration.' Harris said: 'The two plans seem to me to have a common failure. They approach the problem in an abstract manner. They begin, and end, with an organisational and administrative set-up … Administration is not an objective. It is a means to an end, and should be considered only in relation to that end.'126
To Alley, Plan A was 'An impressive conception, reminds one of a super 127
It had been intended that the plans, and comments on them, should be considered in February 1944, at a conference of the NZLA which would have been the first such conference since 1941. At the last minute the conference was postponed because severe restrictions were suddenly placed on railway travel (there was a war on), and in the end the postponement lasted until February 1945. Looking back, one can only think that it was providential that the two hastily cobbled together plans could now be given more careful consideration, away from the pressure of remits and resolutions. The coming year was also going to be an eventful one in producing new material to be incorporated in the discussions, though the extent to which this would happen could not have been foreseen in February 1944.
At the next meeting of the interim planning committee, on 17 March 1944, Alley 'stated that since the last meeting the 128 This was the background to the statement in Alley's March 1944 annual report. It seems, from correspondence on the file, that the negotiations were with Barr and Auckland, but nothing ever came of them. The statement did, however, put an end to Plan A. At its meeting in April 1944 the NZLA council appointed a less interim planning committee, again with Carnell as convener but with Barr and 129 The story of this committee's fortunes will have to be postponed at this point.
There is no doubt that Alley was very annoyed by Carnell's involvement with the production of Plan A, and that his attitude towards her soured from this time; when Alley got annoyed with someone he stayed annoyed.
'Plan A,' said Alley in his memoirs, 'was a very startlingly innovative one … it involved a more or less complete taking over of the whole library system by Government. Now this might have been possible but I don't think Mr Mason or Mr Fraser as Prime Minister would have agreed with it. I don't think the Library Association would have agreed to it, it would of course have caused a great deal of fluttering in the dovecotes. It might, of course on the other hand, have been a good thing because it would have saved an awful lot of energy in trying to persuade reluctant local authorities to do something about their library service. Under Plan A libraries would be just installed, maintained as it were like the Post Office or some Departmental thing. Well, one could talk about this endlessly. One sees all the perils.'130
Another intriguing element in this story is Carnell's association with 131 and in 1944 he was chairman of the Wellington branch. Alley: 'Robertson was a committed, avowed, dyed-in-the-wool socialist, a believer in the virtues of co-operation. He just lived and breathed and thought in those terms. He worked in the 132 Robertson did not continue active work in the association after 1944; he died (by his own hand) in 1950.133
The episode of the two plans is interesting on several levels. It shows Alley's increasing stature, both as a trusted adviser of ministers and as a leader in a profession which was thinking big. Over quite a long period Alley as director and Alley as honorary secretary would orchestrate important library developments, with political support and with the willing co-operation of most of the leaders in the profession. It also shows Alley's ability to take quick and effective action when circumstances demanded it. The downside of this was his somewhat ruthless manipulation of people
In his subsequent attitude to Carnell, though, Alley demonstrated another characteristic, his inability to forgive and make allowance for opposition, which arose from what he called, in writing to his sister Joy, 'the well known Alley thin-ness of epidermis';134 over the years this made difficulties for himself as well as for others.
Towards the end of 1943 Scholefield, in writing to Collins about a number of matters concerning the NZLA, said:
To my mind the Robertson–Carnell combination is not nice and is aiming at things I don't like at all. Moreover, they have Geoff Alley very unhappy. It is a strange position for two members of his staff to be working in opposition to him. I have always felt that Geoff did not do what he might have done to secure co-operation from some of us. He was too apt to draw rabbits out of his pocket and make the council feel foolish for discussing matters to which he held the answer. Nevertheless we will have to support him and not allow the C.L.S. to suffer.
Miss Carnell 's fault is impetuosity; she will plunge at the hurdles. The other party is a bird of passage pure and simple … I do feel that at the present moment our path is very clear and that all we have to do is the obvious; i.e. amalgamate the Turnbull and this Library and the C.L.S. with or without theRoyal Society and with or without the Archives …135
A month later Scholefield wrote a long letter to Alley setting out his concerns about the position of the NZLA and its relations with the CLS. After emphasising the help and support that the
Though from the outset I realised that the influence of the C.L.S. was bound to be an increasing one and probably dominant I always thought it undesirable that the Association should sell out to the C.L.S. That would be bad from your own point of view and it would be the first stage in
complete bureaucratisation of library service in N.Z. I have often thought that the C.L.S. and yourself (or Miss Carnell ) went too far and too fast in seizing authority and assuming activities that would have been better left to the Association. Then I felt that the non-C.L.S. personnel of the Council and its committees were simply rubber-stamping what you wished while we were sometimes in the dark as to your real plans. I don't suggest that you had any covert designs, but you quite often spoke flippantly or in miracles which did not make your real meaning clear to my dense mind …Miss Carnell 's position has always appeared to me to be anomalous and mischievous … You will understand from this that I believe we have got into a mild imbroglio and that it isour dutyto find the way out. The Carnell–Robertson putsch has to me a very sinister implication …Personally I want to see that the C.L.S. and yourself do not suffer as I am afraid you might, from the unexplained defection of people within and without the C.L.S.136
Scholefield was potentially that very valuable kind of person, a strong critic who was basically supportive and who had mana. He remained well disposed towards Alley, but Alley always spoke disparagingly of him from this time.
In the midst of these events, Mary Prescott Parsons arrived in Wellington in January 1944 to establish a United States Information Library for the Office of War Information. Born in 1885, she had had a distinguished career in American libraries, her work in public libraries ranging from the great New Zealand Libraries said.137
It is not surprising that members of the NZLA saw Parsons's arrival as a chance to get first-class guidance on finding solutions to problems they had encountered in organising an indigenous form of education for librarianship, or that she would answer the call. She was a member of the NZLA's library training committee by April 1944, when she was offering assistance with the training course by seeking teaching materials in the 138 but her presence was also sparking much more ambitious ideas.
McIntosh had returned from the 139 but it was too soon for such a meeting to be successful. In a comment which he placed on his file at that time, Alley wrote:
No one would be so absurd as not to want to have this. If the Association had a long and glorious career of library training, had in effect trained people, if the country were full of good libraries and if one could make sure that the librarian knew his or her job and that the book stock were classified and catalogued and there was some attempt being made in short to meet the situation. But this is not the case. We are dealing now with a situation which I think calls for fairly rapid action. We have got from the Carnegie Corporation assistance for the five year programme … If at the end of 3 or 4 years or even 5 years, it may be longer, it is felt that people should receive the hall mark of academic qualifications, if they need that in order to conduct their libraries better, then it would perhaps be a good thing to take steps in this direction, but I think we are faced with the fact that we have in front of us a draft [for the NZLA course] which does ensure that we do something …
140
Three years had passed. The NZLA had started its courses with great difficulty, and the time had come when another superhuman effort would have to be made to launch the second (diploma) part of the general training course. Furthermore, the effort involved was devoted entirely to improving the performance of existing staff members, who were not required to have more than a university entrance qualification; it was not recruiting people to a profession. In January 1944 Harris, who was temporarily convening 141 The logic of the situation was pointing towards a more radical solution to the problem of training, one which had seemed impossible to Alley in 1941 and which would still have seemed to present insuperable difficulties, but for the miraculous arrival of Mary Parsons.
At its meeting in April 1944 the library training committee asked Dunningham 'to consider the question of a school giving short courses in library training, and to report to the next meeting of this Committee'.142 Dunningham did not report until September, but in the meantime there was an informal but seminal meeting at which Parsons decided that she would take on the directorship of a New Zealand library school if arrangements for her to do so could be negotiated. 'I remember,' wrote her obituarist (Dunningham), 'we were walking with Mary through the orchard of the Alley farmhouse at Riccarton when we sat down, as Geoffrey said, to work out the possibility of a Bretton Woods (or was it Dumbarton Oaks?) agreement by which the Director of the USIS Library might be seconded to the New Zealand government for assistance in the founding and direction of the library school if the New Zealand government in its turn would agree to second professional assistance to the work of the USIS Library.'143
True to form, Dunningham, in his report to the library training committee,144 focused entirely on the need for suitably trained staff to be available when the CLS was 'decentralised on a regional basis as suggested in the last Annual Report of the Director … My own view,' he said, 'is that almost complete autonomy should exist in regions. The regional librarian should be responsible to his regional committee which should submit its budget every year to the national board for approval and that the national board should in turn consist of a majority of members elected by local regional conferences … It is suggested that the national centre should set up a library school and that the national library board should retain power to refuse service through a region to any local library where staffing is considered insufficiently trained.' He then referred to the fortunate circumstance of Parsons's presence in the country and recommended that she be asked to report on a more detailed plan in co-operation with the director of the CLS.
Other librarians had their own particular interests, of course. There were, for instance, the university librarians, who also had staffing needs, and Mary L. Brown, Librarian of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), pointed out to the committee that, if a school of librarianship were established with government assistance, 'it would seem 145 When the library training committee met on 19 October 1944 it was ready to go for a wider scheme. With Alley in the chair and Barr, Collins, 146
This resolution went to the NZLA council, and the gist of it was included in a composite request which was sent to the government from the association's conference in February 1945, but while the guests were being greeted work was going on in the kitchen. Alley would have been keeping his minister fully informed of what was happening and getting the appropriate green lights, and he was also working on his more cautious and timorous colleagues – Collins remembered being taken by the elbow while he and Alley walked along Lambton Quay in Wellington and being told, 'We've got to do this.'147 Parsons spoke to the conference in February and assured those present that if library school students were self-reliant and intelligent they would experiment and would improve libraries.148 McIntosh, who by then was secretary of external affairs, negotiated with the 149
So when the time came, in April 1945, for an exchange of notes between the two governments, everything had been pretty well sewn up. 150
On 30 April 1945 Alley wrote to Parsons to say that the director of the school would be in full control of staff and students and responsible to the director of the CLS for its operation (or to the director of a National Library Service, if one were instituted), and that the training committee of the NZLA would be consulted on policy matters, although its recommendations would not necessarily be considered as mandatory; interviews of applicants for entry to the school would be conducted by the director of the school, the director of the CLS, and a representative of the NZLA in each interviewing centre.151 Mason's public statement, in which he said, 'In 1946, with the approval of the manpower authorities, the school will give a year's training to 30 students, who will be University graduates in science or arts', 152 followed shortly after.
The decision to establish the Library School was made fairly quickly, so that the first course could start at the beginning of 1946. 'Incidentally,' Alley said in his memoirs, 'this was one of my first experiences of a favourable Treasury report. Treasury gave the thing its blessing and the rest was merely, I think, more or less a formality.'153 But the proposal which led to it was part of a larger programme of development affecting the CLS which was coming through the NZLA's pipelines at the same time. We shall now have to go back to the planning committee; first, though, we should record two events which occurred in the middle of 1944, one of which might have caused problems if it had come to anything, while the other probably enabled those who were concerned with long-term planning to proceed in an orderly way.
The first of these was Alley's apparent decision, in the middle of the year in which, we can now see, he was within sight of the peak of his career, to apply for a position of lecturer in rural education at Lincoln Agricultural College. This position had been established to enable teacher trainees to opt for periods of residence and instruction at Lincoln College in order to meet the needs of rural people,154 and Alley's application155 was supported by testimonials from 156 and 157 The decision to apply is described as 'apparent' 158 but Alley kept a carbon copy in his personal papers. The appointment went to
The other event was what Alley called Carnell's 'very quick and unwelcome departure'.159 She went to London in August 1944, to help to establish a library service for the armed forces in the Middle East160 and to undertake tasks for the CLS and the NZLA, and in May 1945 she resigned her appointment as assistant director of the CLS.161 In her five years in New Zealand she had made a lasting impact. Alley, in his memoirs, emphasised her work in getting the 162 but equal emphasis should be placed on the way in which she ensured that the CLS became quickly implanted in the rural library scene. 'Once she knew what Mr Alley wanted,' said 163
The planning committee which was appointed by the NZLA council under Carnell's convenership in April 1944 was asked to 'comment on proposals for regional development of library services to be made by the Government Country Library Service'. After Carnell's departure, Perry took it over in a caretaking role and three new members, including Dunningham, were appointed to it. In the same period another planning committee, to report 'on points concerning the development of university and special library service which should be considered by the main planning committee',164 was actively considering its brief. This committee consisted of Collins (convener), Brown (DSIR), Harris and Scholefield. Many of the most prominent members of the association were therefore, by the second half of 1944, involved in the two planning committees, and from this point planning for the future got really serious.
When the main planning committee met on 17 October 1944 it appointed 165
By the end of 1944, therefore, decentralisation of the work of the CLS, based on the document that had been prepared by Alley (no doubt in 166 The proposals had the strong support of Melville, who was held in great respect in the library world, having been chairman of the Auckland City Council's library committee since 1917 except for a break of three years, a local authority delegate to the Libraries Association/NZLA since 1926, and a wholehearted and consistent supporter of the free public library idea.167
At the same time, the supplementary committee convened by Collins raised questions concerning the 'learned' libraries, which had not hitherto been given much prominence in discussions of national library systems. The emphasis of its report to the council was on the need for 'a real National Library' to be formed by the combination of the 168
In response to the report by Collins's committee, which had been asked by the NZLA council to continue its discussions, Alley produced another document, 'Draft Proposals for Setting up a New Zealand National Library Service', which was approved by the minister of education 'as a basis of discussion'.169 The committee met for two days, on 12 and 13 December 1944, to consider it, and from this point Collins, working closely with Alley, became a leading figure in bringing together practical ideas for the development of the library system and in breaking the log-jam of reports, opinions, and endless discussions.
In the preamble to his document Alley had said: 'The past few years have taught New Zealand librarians the importance of co-operation and a pressing need has arisen for a well-organized national centre to co-ordinate the efforts of all libraries concerned with the exploitation and conservation
In opening the committee's discussion of Alley's document, Collins referred to earlier attempts to create a national library by the amalgamation of several existing libraries. He said that these had failed because the libraries involved were concerned with their own functions and were not particularly interested in the national library idea. Now we had a new 'extrovert' service, the
- The present duplication could not be justified: the big State libraries must be co-ordinated. It was asking for trouble to leave them as they were, though it might be difficult to bring them under one control (Scholefield).
- The national service would co-ordinate these libraries; it was not necessary to bring them under one control (Harris).
- It was no use attempting unity until real unity existed; the various libraries must learn to work together and then they could talk about new buildings. Continuing with book resources, union catalogues, etc., would prepare the way for later development (Alley).
The committee agreed that to proceed with functional development would not impede the eventual formation of a national library but would prepare the ground for it; and also that the training of staff was the first necessity. It then agreed on a set of resolutions which endorsed Alley's proposals, commenting that further steps concerning the integration of state-owned 170
Reports of these meetings were published in New Zealand Libraries, together with a very detailed organisation chart which showed the connections that might exist between a National Library Service and the various types of libraries in the national system. The conference of the NZLA which was held in Wanganui in February 1945 endorsed the recommendations of both the planning committees and sent telegrams to the prime minister and the minister of education supporting them.171 In introducing his committee's recommendations, Collins said: 'Let me state that it is my committee which is responsible for the new proposal to expand on the basis of the 172
A full account of these discussions, with the organisation chart, was included in Alley's March 1945 annual report.173 It does not seem to have given rise to any comment in Parliament, but Victoria University College took alarm at the organisation chart, which included the university libraries among all the others. The university authorities were not advanced enough in their administrative thinking or experience to appreciate the difference between a solid line, which indicated an administrative link, and a dotted one, which indicated fraternal co-operation, and assumed that the whole thing was a government takeover. In July 1945 the registrar of Victoria University College wrote to the NZLA conveying a resolution of the college council which said: 'While being happy to co-operate as in the past in making library resources as widely available as possible the controlling authorities of the Library would be opposed to any change in the Library system which impaired their ultimate control.' A reply, drafted by Collins, said, 'In the meantime, I would say that the required to participate; and 174 It was a storm in a teacup, but it was a teacup which was storm-prone.
Cabinet approved the creation of a National Library Service (NLS) on 21 September 1945, and Mason announced its establishment on 8 October. The plan for the new service was basically the one that had been put forward by the NZLA (chart and all), except that it was much less specific on the question of the future direction of the CLS: 'The present 175 In writing to the public service commissioner to inform him of the Cabinet's decision and its approval of the appointment of a Director, National Library Service, a librarian, National Library Centre, and a Librarian, 176 This was done (though the appointment was subject to appeal), and Dunningham, in writing to congratulate Alley, said, 'I don't think anyone else could have estimated so accurately the distance which the Government could be persuaded to go from year to year; nor do I think anyone else could have gained confidence and respect for the development so quickly.'177
Dunningham was right, of course, but the importance of Collins's contribution in clarifying the proposals should not be overlooked. In 1969 Perry wrote to 178 to clarify Collins's role. 'Until the 1945 Conference of the Association in Wanganui,' Perry wrote,
nothing of moment had revealed itself as far as the proposed composition and character of the library were concerned … Largely as a result of Collins' thinking then and subsequently the National Library Service was brought into being … We thus had under one control a National Library Service – the nucleus at any rate of a comprehensive service – but without a
National Library … As I recall it, the figure most to be remembered in connection with determination of function and scope of the library is Collins … Collins was far more concerned with the character theorganisation would assume. Without in any way trying to detract from the influence of the Brains Trust in the early days [1934–35], or of Alley or any other individual, I feel fairly sure that much of the force that resulted in the establishment of the Country Library Service had become spent a few years later. Mason's sympathies were enlisted for a further programme which owed as much to Collins' Library Association committee as it did to carried-forward Prime Ministerial sympathy.179
But Alley it was who carried the government with him.
Chapter8
Anni Mirabiles: National Library Service
On Monday 18 February 1946, 30 students selected for the first graduate course of the
'This is an important day,' Alley told the students with characteristic lack of hyperbole, 'I am glad to see you.' Mary Parsons, in a quick survey of library history, referred to an earlier phase when libraries were first established, with bookish and scholarly people, possessing the special kind of photographic memory that enabled them to find information without any special order in the arrangement of the books, as librarians. This was followed by a period in which methods of arranging the books were devised which were necessary for the control of growing collections, but which tended to become ends in themselves rather than means to an end. The new school represented a third phase, an era of service, in which a clear distinction was made between professional library work and the routines which could be carried on in libraries by clerical assistants. In the curriculum of the new school the aim would be 'to take the best from each phase of library development — good scholarship from the first, good and useful methods from the second and from the third the idea of active community service through books'.1
Such occasions lend themselves to inadequate reporting and to underestimation of the participants, but Parsons was a hard-headed administrator with a scholarly background, and her brief remarks emphasised the
Accommodation for the school had been allocated in another wooden building in Sydney Street East, next to the building already occupied by the National Library Service. Since it was not ready by 18 February, the Wellington Public Library's lecture theatre complex was rented for the first three weeks — cramped quarters, but not so cramped as to dampen enthusiasm. Staffing, which had been set at three senior and two junior lecturers, was not complete by opening day, but Alley, as well as Parsons, undertook a considerable teaching load, particularly in dealing with library administration and the social setting of public library service. their library school, their achievement.
The selection of students had been made by the director of the NLS and the director of the Library School on the basis of written applications followed by interviews in which they were joined, in each centre, by a representative of the NZLA, and the final list was approved by the minister of education. Part of the written application was a list of books read recently by the candidate, from which the interviewers could bring up sometimes disconcerting questions. Parsons, who interviewed separately from the others, made shrewd assessments based on her long and varied experience, though she had a strange habit of noting, on the interview sheets, which candidates had blue eyes.2 Some applicants found Alley's pregnant pauses unnerving, as
One who never got over this initial experience of Alley's silence was a sensitive man, German and Jewish in origin, who had arrived in New Zealand some time after leaving Germany during the Nazi era and whose experiences would explain a good deal of his sensitivity. Years later Dietrich Borchardt still spluttered about 'that heap of brawn that sat there, smoking and not looking at me' while the interview was conducted by the NZLA representative.3 What had happened was that it had been discovered too late that, because of their living allowances, the students were technically appointed temporarily to the public service (and the allowances were included as NLS salaries in the government's estimates of expenditure). They were therefore governed by the Public Service Act, which decreed that no person should be admitted to the public service 'unless he is a natural-born or naturalized subject of His Majesty'.4 Another section of the act provided for 'any officer or class of officers' to be declared exempt from provisions of the act by the governor general 'with advice and consent',5 and Alley had set in motion the machinery to exempt Library School students, but it did not complete its journey until late in February 1946.6 Borchardt, who was still a German national, was told that he could not be admitted to the school in 1946 and was invited to apply again for entry to the 1947 intake (by which time he had in any case been naturalised), but Alley did not explain to him clearly and sympathetically the reasons for the rejection and what was being done about them. No doubt he was acting in the best public service tradition of confidentiality and discretion, but one cannot help thinking that a bit of human indiscretion might have been helpful in this case.
One student, a science graduate, withdrew after a short time to accept an opportunity elsewhere, but the 29 who remained settled down to a hard year's work. Among them were one future national librarian, two city librarians, two university librarians, and one library adviser to the governments of other Commonwealth countries, as well as others who helped to advance the practice of librarianship in other roles; but that was all in the future. At this stage they sat at the feet of those who had made it all possible: Alley, Barr, Norrie, Perry, Scholefield, Collins, Harris, Dunningham – all those who have figured in this story so far. They were not overly conscious of being the first of the waves of the future, but they became very conscious of being 'the class of '46', sometimes causing a little irritation among members of the classes of '47 and later.
The other major addition to the complex which made up the National Library Service was the new National Library Centre, which came into
In his blueprint which led to the creation of the NLS, Alley had set out the planned responsibilities of the National Library Centre as follows:
- Establishing satisfactory liaison between all library units.
- Organisation of programme of work and coverage projects of the book resources committee.
- Central Bureau for Library Book Imports and union catalogue.
- Union list of serials.
- Centralised reference clearing-house, employing subject specialists.
- Centralised book ordering available to all government libraries and departments.
- Centralised cataloguing available as above.
- Active participation in the staff training programme.
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This list represented, in the main, a continuation and intensification of tasks that had already been begun, but instead of being add-ons to the CLS, added to the CLS 'because it was there', they would now form the nucleus of a group of functions which many would have regarded as being at the heart of a future national library. There are obvious links between the list and the range of interests of the book resources committee of the NZLA, which was an important link with the wider library community and which Alley continued to chair.
Where was Bagnall to start? One can imagine the first few days, when the job would not have seemed to have a coherent form. Alley was not one to inhibit his top staff members by being too prescriptive, but he would have realised that in working his way into his new job – and, in fact, beginning to create it – it would be good for Bagnall to get his teeth into a particular assignment, and for this purpose he chose the question, which
When Alister McIntosh was mapping out the report which he planned to write on his observations in the