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Curtin University
John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library
Curtin University Library

New Ways of Working: Australia's First Prime Ministerial Library

Paper presented at the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Library Conference, 18-19 October 2001 by Dr Vicki Williamson, University Librarian, Curtin University of Technology

INTRODUCTION

Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Western Australia is named after Australia's wartime Prime Minister, John Curtin.

In 1988, shortly after his appointment as Vice Chancellor, Professor John Maloney initiated discussions about a project to commemorate Australia's wartime Prime Minister, John Curtin. This began a process, which culminated a decade later on the 20th February 1998, in the opening to the public of Australia's first Prime Ministerial Library - the John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library (JCPML), at the John Curtin Centre in the grounds of Curtin University.

During the conception and early planning stages, Australia's first prime ministerial library relied heavily on the US presidential library model for its development. Presidential libraries provided the closest match between what was envisaged for Australia's first prime ministerial library and something that was already in operation.

However, as our thinking matured and we researched the US presidential libraries model further (Williamson, 1993) it was evident that we needed to take into account our unique Australian characteristics in establishing and developing the underpinning professional values of the JCPML. For example, the legal and legislative environment in which the JCPML operates is quite different from that in North America (for example all official records are collected by the National Archives of Australia). So too, there are some social and cultural differences (for example, the general public's attitude towards Australian politicians compared with the culture of leadership in North America). There are also some different professional practice issues (for example, a lack of both a philanthropic tradition and acceptance of specialist archives in Australia compared with the US, and the nature of the relationship between the professions of archives, librarianship, education and museums in Australia).

The present reality is that the JCPML has established itself in an operating environment that fully recognizes our culture.

In particular, the JCPML has endeavoured to

  • blend professional practice from the fields of librarianship, education, archives and museums into an integrated service model
  • exploit new and emerging communication/information systems and technology to provide enhanced access, and
  • educate not venerate.

THE VISION

The vision for the JCPML had to be challenging and innovative but also realistic, convincing and achievable. We melded what we could learn from US presidential libraries into our Australian environment and developed innovative solutions to achieve our vision. For example, given our isolated location it seemed unlikely we would attract huge numbers of individual researchers and visitors, and so exploiting new and emerging communication technologies would help us overcome the tyranny of distance. However, while it was easy to talk about such an approach, turning it into reality brought us many technological challenges.

Mindful of Australians' unenthusiastic attitudes to their national leaders we placed the emphasis on research and scholarship, rather than creating a memorial. Hence the JCPML's motto: 'Learning from the past to build a better future'. We have developed strong programs to promote scholarship such as the JCPML Visiting Scholars' and publications programs.

Starting out 50 years after John Curtin's death, we needed to accept that we would never hold all of the materials relevant to the JCPML's collection themes, which are:

  • John Curtin, the man and his times
  • The Office of the Prime Ministership and those directly associated with it
  • The Australian-American relationship.

We therefore had to set priorities for ourselves. Our initial focus was to concentrate on private records about John Curtin. Secondly, through our digitisation strategy, we worked to develop links to both official and private records in relevant collections worldwide. Thirdly, we will, over time, develop our other collection themes. For example, we have accepted a donation of private records from Mrs Hazel Hawke, as a contribution to our collection focus on the collection theme of the office of prime ministership.

PRODUCTIVE PARTNERSHIPS

A central strategy employed by the JCPML to overcome the political, cultural, legislative and geographic challenges was to build productive and collaborative partnerships. For the JCPML productive partnerships are key strategic and long-term relationships between organizations that share similar values. Long before the JCPML became a physical reality, we had several such partnerships in place.

For us, productive partnerships are a matter of survival and they deliver benefits such as:

  • Direct dollars
  • Specialist support in-kind
  • Help in building prestige and credibility.

For example, it was support from Federal and State Governments, and money from corporations and individuals, that contributed to the establishment of the building of our specialist complex, including the purpose built archival and exhibition space.

All of our partnerships are strategic and determined 'top-down'. The partnership strategy has been deliberate and has required JCPML to be selective in our approach to determining partners. We have been receptive to developing relationships with people and institutions that we believe are critical to the success of the JCPML. For example, early on we made a very strong commitment to work with the surviving members of John Curtin's family and to always respect their feelings and privacy. Winning their approval has meant gaining support for JCPML projects and being given considerable donations of material. The level of caring and consideration they show towards their grandparents always impresses people meeting the Curtin grandchildren today. Over time you would have expected their involvement to diminish. This is not the case.

Although valuable, some partnerships can be hard work and often require hours of behind the scenes toil. Others have been opportune and have 'just come to us'. Above all, our experience has shown that successful and sustained partnerships require a strong and fundamental commitment to shared values - especially in regard to professionalism and respect for family and memories. In all that we do at the JCPML, we have always looked to the vision, leadership and sense of community spirit demonstrated by John Curtin to guide our work. The JCPML seeks to fulfil its vision as Australia's first prime ministerial library by showing leadership within our professional practice and seeking to share our experiences with our professional and general communities.

Our best partnerships have involved the leaders being of 'like-mind'. This reinforces our experience that successful partnerships work best when they are based on shared values. Anything less than shared values mean the relationship or interaction is not true and sustainable.

We have several productive partnerships; all are special and each one has come about through individual circumstances. I offer some examples.

  • National Archives of Australia (NAA)
    This partnership started in 1995 with a project to curate a major travelling exhibition and continues today with a number of significant collaborations. It is our most important to date.
  • Digital Corporation
    The then Digital Corporation provided hardware and software solutions to support our vision for an electronic research archive.
  • Touchstone
    A Perth-based company worked with us in the early days on a number of digital projects and this work gave us the confidence to move enthusiastically into the new digital environment.

The Curtin University Library and Information Service has just signed a partnership agreement with Ex Libris (Australia) Pty Ltd. Among other things, this partnership will see the JCPML working with Ex Libris in the development of their exciting new Digitool product, and is our newest productive partnership

COLLABORATIVE PARTNERSHIPS

Supporting our key productive partnerships are a range of collaborative partnerships, which are also critical to the success of the JCPML. These collaborations help us to maximise our potential and enable us to produce innovative products and services for specific projects. They also enhance our credibility as an archive that is exciting and worth being associated with. Our capacity for innovation has proved critical to the development of collaborative partnerships.

We achieve innovation by:

  • having highly skilled and flexible staff
  • being open to internal and external communities about what we do to facilitate constructive debate and cooperative effort in developing products and services
  • maintaining a clear focus on objectives
  • benefiting from the synergy created by developing collaborations and partnerships at a variety of levels.

The full extent of the JCPML programs and collaborations is too numerous to explore thoroughly today, instead I want to highlight the vital role played by collaborative partnerships in developing ERA: the JCPML's Electronic Research Archive and some of our most significant public programs.

COLLABORATIVE PARTNERSHIPS IN DEVELOPING ERA

Collaborative partnerships have been particularly useful for the JCPML because we started collecting records 50 years after John Curtin's death when many records were already lodged in other institutions. The effort to bring this material together is considerable and is an ongoing priority for us. We have a researcher working on our behalf in Canberra and at various times others in Melbourne and Perth. Public institutions, private organizations and individuals have all been supportive of JCPML's aims.

In 1999 ERA became accessible to the world using the Web. Records available through ERA include the contents of individual records and series of records, and ERA maintains the context in which those records were created. More than 50,000 digital files can now be accessed electronically, including: images, fully searchable text, audio and motion pictures. Where material has already been digitised by other institutions, ERA can "deep link" to such records. "Deep linking" enables researchers to link directly to an item in another institution's database and view that record even though they entered their search through ERA and not the other institution's search engine.

We have developed an electronic tutorial consisting of a series of user-friendly, interactive guides and quizzes designed to help people become more confident about searching for and viewing material from ERA.

In recent months the JCPML has continued its innovative development of ERA by digitising sound recordings of John Curtin's speeches and most of the JCPML oral histories so that users can link to the sound files from the oral history transcripts. We have also successfully streamed video in a similar way, while our Anniversary Lecture by Mr Beazley in July this year was web cast to hundreds of simultaneous users.

The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Library is following our model by launching the initial stage of their digitisation program at this conference with Mr Hawke's political speeches.

As an outcome of its partnership with Ex Libris the JCPML will ultimately move to a database that is open at multiple levels and which can seamlessly use appropriate international metadata standards to present records in multiple formats. We have just met with the Ex Libris Digitool development team in Boston to progress the specifications. Through this partnership ERA will be able to move to a new generation of software that will sustain it for sometime to come.

We know that building collaborative digitisation partnerships is an essential mechanism for the cooperative sharing of information. The National Archives of Australia and the Australian War Memorial have developed active digital programs of their own and both these key institutions now provide support for the JCPML by digitising, on our request, relevant records so that we can "deep link" to their digital material from ERA.

In addition, we have formed successful alliances with a range of institutions, such as the National Library of Australia, Macarthur Memorial Archives, the Roosevelt Presidential Library and the Churchill Archives. All these institutions have made available selected collections and series for digitisation and incorporation into ERA. Each institution has its own requirements and access conditions so flexibility is a key to successful collaboration.

COLLABORATIVE PARTNERSHIPS IN JCPML PUBLIC PROGRAMS

The strength and accessibility of the JCPML research collection forms the basis of our public programs, enabling us to raise the profile of John Curtin in the community at a local, state and national level. Collaboration is an important means of achieving this by targeting new audiences, providing development funds, exploring new perspectives, and so on. Initially we actively sought collaborators for projects, now we are being approached because of our growing reputation.

One of our recent projects for promoting John Curtin to the general community demonstrates how the JCPML makes multiple uses from one project. Prior to the JCPML opening to the public a collaboration was initiated with the National Archives of Australia to curate a major exhibition titled John Curtin: A Man of Peace, A Time of War. The exhibition toured Australia and was installed at the JCPML in time for its opening in 1998. Before dismantling the exhibition to make way for a new display, its contents were recorded to become an online exhibition. In this version we feature panoramas that allow visitors to 'walk around' the exhibition viewing the displays in virtual reality and users can link to a series of interactive quizzes and activities which were previously used with schools during their educational visits. We plan to continue in this virtual direction with our current major exhibition Shaping a Nation: John Curtin and Australia.

The JCPML is collaborating with the Perth Theatre Company to bring to life aspects of the relationship between Prime Minister John Curtin and General Douglas MacArthur. We plan to stage the play at the JCPML in Perth and the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. The play will be performed for general audiences as well as being adapted for use within the JCPML education program. We also hope to have a US production in the future.

The JCPML has developed an electronic publishing schedule for 2001 that has placed a number of projects online. JCPML staff have collaborated with various authors to publish information from the collection for easy access through the web. These projects have been designed to have wide appeal so that they can be browsed by the general public or used by students and educationists. The latest web publications are Visiting John Curtin at Home and From Revolutionary Firebrand to Journalist in Spirit.

Our collaboration with Ann Pederson, who is well known to all of you, has resulted in Understanding Society through its Records. This site is part of the JCPML's ongoing endeavour to contribute to the understanding of archives in the community. Using graphics and interactivity, it explains the concepts and universal importance of record keeping to individuals and government and demonstrates the "work" records perform as the "documentary glue" holding society together.

Australian Studies at Curtin University is the home of several scholarly journals and book series as well as the portal for numerous other scholarly publications across a wide range of disciplines. Australian Studies also hosts the Australian Public Intellectual Network, an electronic gateway to Australian culture and educational resources. In partnership with the JCPML, Australian Studies will be expanding its print based and electronic presence.

The JCPML maintains a strong interest in promoting studies of the Australian-American relationship, hence our support of a special issue of the Australian Journal of International Affairs devoted to articles on the relationship between Australia and the USA, timed to mark the 50th anniversary of the Australia-New Zealand-United States (ANZUS) Security Treaty. The close association enjoyed by the US and Australia is generally regarded as having been initiated by Prime Minister John Curtin during the Second World War when he famously declared that Australia was turning to America for help in the Pacific arena.

Since 1997 eminent high profile Australian scholars have been appointed annually as JCPML Visiting Scholars. Each scholar delivers a public lecture and produces a significant manuscript that the JCPML publishes. The benefits from this program are enormous, especially for the publicity and community support generated. One book of John Curtin's personal letters led to extensive collaborative research between the author and JCPML staff, and to a continuing close relationship with John Curtin's family. Without the family's support the manuscript would not have reached publication. In another instance one of our scholars has been offered a commercial publishing contract on the basis of the public lecture he delivered this year. The JCPML is a recognised partner in the contract.

Along with the NAA, the JCPML is a strong supporter of the teaching of Australian history. The JCPML hosts the annual National History Challenge judging and presentations for Western Australia and offers a national prize. We are also founders and collaborators with the History Teachers' Association of Western Australia for Curtin University's annual residential Sir Charles Court Young Leader's Program for elite history students. The JCPML keenly supports and participates in both these programs that are aimed at expanding students' research and leadership skills.

The JCPML promotes education through participation in the curriculum coursework for a number of units on campus including archives and records-management, information and library studies, museum and cultural studies, and education. As well, the JCPML has a very active primary and secondary education program that encompasses 10 -17 year old students. Programs can be accessed online or onsite.

CONCLUSION

The JCPML continues to show leadership in professional practice and innovative digital development. It is now a recognized resource for study and research, providing electronic access to unique and significant archival records from a period that was decisive in Australia's development. Our vision is to contribute to the advancement of knowledge and the enrichment of culture within our community. The productive partnerships and collaborative relationships we form with other institutions, organizations and individuals play a vital part in enabling us to pursue this vision.

I invite you to visit our homepage to learn more about our particular approach to prime ministerial libraries. It is interesting to reflect upon how future Australian prime ministerial libraries will cope with the factors of politics, legislation, geography and cultural practice to reflect the individuality of their prime minister and their organisational situation.