‘The Wisest Help’: Frederick Keppel and his Consultants’ Impact on Australia and New Zealand Libraries

Abstract

Aspects of the Carnegie Corporation’s philanthropic initiative in Australia and New Zealand, which helped transform the library landscape, are examined through the lens of Corporation President Frederick Keppel’s interaction with key advisers, among them James Russell, Dean of Columbia University’s Horace Mann’s Teacher’s College; Ralph Munn, Director of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh; and William Warner Bishop, Dean of the Library School at the University of Michigan. Drawing on original materials in the Carnegie files as well as pertinent memoirs and secondary sources, the back-story is created of a library revolution in Australia that could not have happened as it did without the contributions of Frederick Keppel’s American collaborators. Particular mention is made of Bishop and Munn, who were especially influential in devising travel programmes, sifting the qualifications of applicants for further education, and advising Keppel about resource allocation as well as mentoring applicants who would subsequently effect fundamental changes in the way Australian libraries did business at every level of librarianship.

Keywords:

• Carnegie Corporation
• library history
• philanthropy
• Frederick W. Keppel
• University of Michigan
• University of Pittsburgh
• New Zealand
• Australia

This article grew out of a paper delivered on 29 November 2012 at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology conference ‘Buildings, Books and Blackboards: Intersecting Narratives’. The author is grateful for support from the Gettysburg College Faculty Development Fund and the University of Melbourne’s School of Historical and Philosophical Studies’ hospitality on several occasions. He also wishes to acknowledge the critique of an earlier draft of this article and bibliographical leads provided by Dr David Jones of Sydney.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael J. Birkner

Michael J. Birkner is Professor of History and Benjamin Franklin Professor of Liberal Arts at Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, USA. He is the author or editor of twelve books on American political and social history. His ongoing work on Carnegie Corporation philanthropy in Australia includes the article ‘‘Not Yet Ready’: The Carnegie Corporation and Australian University Libraries’, in Collections, Characters, and Communities: The Shaping of Libraries in Australia and New Zealand, ed. by B. J. McMullin (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2010).