What Munn Missed
The Queensland Schools of Arts
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/qre.2013.20Keywords:
Ralph Munn, historic tour of Australian libraries, Munn–Pitt Report, public library movementAbstract
American Librarian Ralph Munn's historic tour of Australian libraries in 1934 is well documented. Along with Ernest Pitt, Chief Librarian of the State Library of Victoria, he spent nearly ten weeks travelling from Sydney and back again, visiting libraries in all the state capitals and many regional towns throughout the country. Munn's trip was funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, which was then, through its Dominions fund, turning attention to philanthropic opportunities in the Antipodes. The resulting report, Australian Libraries: A Survey of Conditions and Suggestions for their Improvement (commonly referred to as the Munn–Pitt Report) is often credited with initiating the public library movement in Australia.
References
Munn, R. and Pitt, E., Australian libraries: a survey of conditions and suggestions for their improvement (Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research, 1935), p. 9: ‘This survey of Australian libraries has been made possible by the generous action of the Trustees of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, in furtherance of their objective of promoting the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding. The whole of the cost of conducting the inquiry, including the publication of this report, has been met by the Corporation.’
Munn and Pitt, Australian libraries, p. 61.
Munn and Pitt, Australian libraries, p. 62.
Columbia University, Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY). Series III-A. Box 50. Letter, Ralph Munn to John Russell, 4 June 1934. Russell served as consultant to Frederick Keppel, President of the Carnegie Corporation.
State Library of Victoria. Papers Relating to the Munn-Pitt Report, 1934. MS 9596. Box 1. Survey Q49 Esk.
Papers Relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey Q3 Boonah.
Papers Relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey Q5 Bundaberg.
Blyth, A., Yandina School of Arts 1916–2006 (Yandina: Yandina School of Arts, 2006), p. 13.
Munn and Pitt, Australian libraries, 65. The calculations in this section of the report are incorrect. The authors state that the total expenditures for thirty-one rural Queensland libraries are £5834 with an average expenditure of £118 per library. The average is actually £188, a difference of £70. The report also claims a survey return rate of thirty-six, but seventy-one Schools of Arts in Queensland returned a questionnaire. Even if one discounts the questionnaires of the larger libraries (Public Library of Queensland, Rockhampton, Townsville and Brisbane Schools of Arts), and specialised libraries (Workers Educational Association of Queensland, Department of Workers Tutorial Classes, University of Queensland, Historical Society, Royal Society and Parliamentary Library of Queensland), that still leaves sixty-one Schools of Arts surveys returned from small towns and rural areas, not thirty-six.
Correspondence typically expanded on the survey questions or requested financial assistance from the Carnegie Corporation.
Papers relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey Q29: Mount Morgan. Letter, 10 May 1934, Joseph T. Hall to Ernest Pitt.
Papers relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey Q2: Babinda. Letter, 28 April 1934, J. G. Eastwood to Ernest Pitt.
Papers relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey Q43: South Johnstone. Letter, 16 May 1934, Thomas Joseph Farrell to Ernest Pitt.
Papers relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey Q28: Cardwell. Letter, 9 May 1934, Gladys Stephens to Ernest Pitt.
Wagner, R., ‘A blood-stained corpse in the butler's pantry: the Queensland Bush Book Club’, Queensland Review 18 (1) (2011), 1–25.
John Oxley Library (JOL), State Library of Queensland, Brisbane, OM-78-47, Queensland Bush Book Club Records, Annual Report (AR) 1928.
Bremer, A. and Lyons, M., ‘Mechanics’ Institute Libraries: the readers demand fiction’ in Lyons, M. and Arnold, J., A history of the book in Australia 1891–1945 (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2001), pp. 209–25; Webb, R., The Gympie School of Arts and Library (Brisbane: Aebis, 1995), p. 11. Mudies, a large circulating library in London, despatched as many as 1,000 boxes weekly, each carrying between ten and 100 books to British country and colonial subscribers. Many boxes went directly to the Schools of Arts and Mechanics’ Institutes in Australia. Webb writes: ‘Placing a regular standing order with Mudies was in many ways a sensible course of action for the School of Arts to take. It meant that boxes of a hundred or more reasonably cheap, popular, current and attractively presented books arrived regularly. Libraries set up standing orders to obtain large numbers of books and multiple copies.’
Webb, The Gympie School of Arts and Library, p. 41
Blyth, Yandina School of Arts 1916–2006, p. 11.
Papers relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. In Queensland, most Schools of Arts relied on volunteers or an honorary secretary rather than paid staff.
Papers relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey Q29: Mount Morgan. Letter, 10 May 1934, Joseph T. Hall to Ernest Pitt. The Mount Morgan School of Arts permitted senior scholars in the primary schools to borrow books for 1 shilling per year if paid through the head teachers of their respective schools. When the scheme was adopted, there were seven primary schools in the district, and the head teachers agreed to an allocation of from ten to fifty scholars from their schools, based on enrolment, so that 200 students had library access. The Minister of Education was so impressed with the results that he sent a special grant of £10 to the Mount Morgan School of Arts to purchase more literature for the juvenile section.
Webb, The Gympie School of Arts and Library, p. 5. Other motivations behind the School of Arts movement included a better trained workforce, a desire of the fortunate to share their blessing with others and the belief that the education of the lower classes might make them more respectful of authority. There was also the desire of the workers themselves to improve their skills.
Papers relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey Q12: Maroochy River.
Blyth, Yandina School of Arts 1916–2006, p. 5.
Papers relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey Q17: Stanthorpe; Webb, The Gympie School of Arts and Library, pp. 13–14.
Webb, The Gympie School of Arts and Library, p. 15.
Papers relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey Q12: Maroochy River; Survey Q26 Mourilyan.
Papers relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey Q11: Kangaroo Point.
Papers relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey Q26: Mourilyan.
Papers relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey Q16: Rockhampton. Letter, 4 May 1934, W. K. Cleeve to Ernest Pitt. Cleve provides a list of the magazines and papers that the Rockhampton School of Arts sold at the end of the year to raise money for the library. This list shows the variety of publications including Australian Traveler, Australian Cat & Dog Gazette, Queensland Herald, Sydney Mail, British Weekly, London Observer, Glasgow Daily Record, Illustrated London News, Le Temps (French daily), Manchester Guardian, New Republic, New Statesman and Nation, New York Life, New York Herald, San Francisco Examiner, Scientific American, Saturday Evening Post,, Sunday Times of Johannesburg, Tattler, London Times, Weekly Independent of Dublin, Harper's Bazaar and Ladies Home Journal.
Webb, The Gympie School of Arts and Library, pp. 8, 11.
Papers relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey Q62: Windsor.
Webb, The Gympie School of Arts and Library, p. 22.
Papers relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey Q47: Cecil Plains. Letter 20 May 1934 M. S. Eggar to Ernest Pitt.
Papers relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey Q12: Maroochy River.
Papers relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey Q62: Windsor. Letter, 28 May 1934, T. Prentice to Ernest Pitt.
Papers relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey Q26: Mourilyan. Pamphlet, Mourilyan's amazing citizenship: what it has done for the School of Arts library with 10,000 books and a fine museum, 1930. The pamphlet was written prior to the subsidy cut.
Papers relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey 29: Mount Morgan. Letter, 10 May 1934, Joseph Hall to Ernest Pitt. Hall recounts the history of Mount Morgan School of Arts from prosperous times, with 326 on their rolls in 1925, to a downward spiral, brought on by a railway strike and mine closings. Unemployment rose and revenues fell. ‘The committee had borrowed £2,250 from the Government, to complete the erection of a Hall, from the letting of which, they expected to receive sufficient revenue to repay the loan, and provide literature for the Library & Reading Room. The closing of the Mine, with its consequent exodus of our population, was a very severe blow . . . The Committee struggled to meet their financial obligations to the Government, up to June 1928, when they had exhausted their resources, and from then they were compelled to allow their installments to fall into arrears. In 1929 the Government reduced the endowment from 10/ in the £ to altogether, and there has been no subsidy since then.’
Papers relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey Q16: Rockhampton. Letter, 4 May 1934, W. K. Cleeve to Ernest Pitt.
Papers relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey Q41: Mulgrave. Letter, 15 May 1934, Alfred Nighell to Ernest Pitt.
Papers relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey Q47: Cecil Plains. Letter, 20 May 1934, M. S. Eggar to Ernest Pitt.
Papers relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey Q36: Morningside. Letter, 15 May 1934, A. C. Morrison to Ernest Pitt.
Papers relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey Q15: Pratten. Letter, 3 May 1934, S. Duxbury to Ernest Pitt.
Papers relating to the Munn–Pitt Report. Survey Q15: Pratten. Letter, 3 May 1934, S. Duxbury to Ernest Pitt.
CCNY. Series III-A, Box 231. Letter, 5 December 1934, Ralph Munn to John Russell.
CCNY. Series III-A, Box 231. Letter 8 February 1935 Ralph Munn to John Russell.
