"an institution of help and education": The development of free public library services in the City of Townsville, 1866-1981
Sayers, Richard Colin (1996) "an institution of help and education": The development of free public library services in the City of Townsville, 1866-1981. Honours thesis, James Cook University of North Queensland.
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Abstract
An excerpt from the introduction: From the earliest days of settlement in 1864, the people of Townsville have derived particular pride from local developments or events that place their community ahead of others in Queensland. It is remarkable, therefore, that an event of enormous social and cultural significance, the founding of Queensland's first free public library in Townsville in 1938, has received scant local attention over the last five decades. The Townsville Municipal Library, as this free public library was known, opened on 1 August 1938, five years before the State's first attempt at free library legislation, and a full seven years prior to the formation of the Library Board of Queensland. Considered a bold experiment in the municipalisation of hitherto subscription-based services, the Library was contrived from the remains of a longstanding but declining private institution, the Townsville School of Arts. Until the middle of the 1940s, the Townsville Municipal Library formed a solitary (and largely unrecognised) vanguard for the Free Library Movement in Queensland. It was also the exemplar of modern practice to which Queensland's other emerging free public libraries looked in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
| Item ID: | 83983 |
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| Item Type: | Thesis (Honours) |
| Keywords: | Townsville, public library services, local history, Townsville Municipal Library |
| Copyright Information: | © 1996 Richard Colin Sayers |
| Date Deposited: | 12 Jan 2025 22:51 |
| FoR Codes: | 43 HISTORY, HERITAGE AND ARCHAEOLOGY > 4399 Other history, heritage and archaeology > 439999 Other history, heritage and archaeology not elsewhere classified @ 50% 46 INFORMATION AND COMPUTING SCIENCES > 4610 Library and information studies > 461099 Library and information studies not elsewhere classified @ 50% |
| SEO Codes: | 22 INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION SERVICES > 2203 Information services > 220303 Library and archival services @ 50% 13 CULTURE AND SOCIETY > 1307 Understanding past societies > 130703 Understanding Australia’s past @ 50% |
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