College and Research Libraries HARRISON BRYAN Australian Academic Libraries: The Incomplete Revolution Over the last twenty years academic libraries in Australia have been trans- formed in terms of accommodation, staffing, resources, and services. This was brought about as federal funding became available, in succession; to th.e li~raries of universities, colleges of advanced education (CAEs), and in- stttutwns of technical and further education (TAFE). University libraries have become the nation's largest bibliographical resource and can now lay some claim to providing resources for research. CAE libraries are within sight of beginning adequacy for undergraduate teaching. TAFE libraries, though transformed, still fall far short of adequacy. Economic constraints have slowed development in recent years, but the future cannot be said to be wholly bleak. HISTORY The first universities were established in Australia during what has been termed the era of colonial pride. 1 The initial moves to recognize what were originally, with one exception, penal colonies as self-respecting outposts of European civilization, came in the 1840s and 1850s; and it is no accident that Australia's oldest un-iversities, Sydney (1851) and Melbourne (1853), were founded almost immediately on the establishment of responsible government in the colonies of New South Wales and Victoria respectively. There followed a period, which extended beyond the federation of the six colonies into the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, during which each colony or state es- tablished "its own" university. Thus we have Adelaide, 1874; Tasmania, 1890; Queensland, 1909; and Western Australia, 1912. It is important for the non-Australian reader to appreciate that Australian federalism has a strong "state-rights" strand to it. Residual power, including that relating to education, lies · with the states not the commonwealth, and it has been asserted, Harrison Bryan is librarian: University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia. with what degree of facetiousness one can but conjecture, that the only force which unifies Sydney and Melbourne, the two big Australian cities, is their common distrust of Canberra, the national capital. Partly due to this, at least potentially, disruptive force, and partly to the problems of distance and demography i~ a country the size of the United States but with perhaps 10 percent of its population, there has been an irrepressible urge toward com- plete self-sufficiency on the part of the first six "state" universities. This has made for a degree of sameness among them. It has also led in some cases to a dangerously early overextending of their resources. Since 1913 a further thirteen universities have been established. Three trends are traceable in this development: an urge to diversify; a need to multiply to meet popu- lation growth; and a repeated stirring of conscience toward decentralization, in a country whose population seems re- morselessly to be concentrating in a handful of cities, most of them on the southeast littoral. . Diversity and Multiplicity In response to the first urge, the Austra- lian National University (ANU) was founded in 1948, virtually coincident with the pro- I 17 18 I College & Research Libraries • January 1980 duction of "Australia's own" motor car- actually by a subsidiary of General Motors-and for the same reasons of na- tional self-assertion. ANU was to be a simon-pure research institution; but, as noted below, it acquired in 1960 an under- graduate operation, which has seemed to water down in part its claims to difference from other universities, some of which have considerably larger postgraduate enroll- ments. - Almost coincidentally, the New South Wales University of Technology was estab- lished as a fairly strong reaction to what was seen, perhaps unfairly, as an unduly "ivory tower" preoccupation on the part of the University of Sydney. Originally eschewing the humanities and dedicated to a new academic and administrative structure, the University of New South Wales, as it is now called, seems rather less clearly distinguish- able today from other universities. The ac- cent on applied science and technology has remained, but much of the "new look" structure has gone and the university has a well-developed faculty of arts. The drive to multiply produced further metropolitan universities in five of the six state capitals; another in Sydney (Mac- quarie, 1964) making, with the University of New South Wales, three altogether in that city ; two more in Melbourne (Monash, 1958, and La Trobe, 1964), and one each in Adelaide (Flinders, 1966), Brisbane (Griffith, 1970), and Perth (Murdoch, 1970). Decentralization Decentralization preceded both multipli- cation and diversification. Canberra U niver- sity College was established as an offshoot of Melbourne in the new federal capital in 1927. It was married to the Australian Na- tional University, not without a degree of mutual misgiving, in 1960. The University College of New England, established at Armidale in. northern New South Wales as a branch of Sydney in 1938, became the in- dependent University of New England in 1954. James Cook University of North Queensland began in 1961 as Townsville University College, an offshoot of Queens- land, and became independent in 1970. Newcastle University College, founded in 1951, and Wollongong University College, founded 1957, both originally associated with the University of New South Wales, secured their independence in 1965 and 1975 respectively. Deakin, established in 1974, is either a multiplication or a decentralization, · being located fifty miles from Melbourne, or perhaps even a diversification, since it was founded on the basis of two colleges of ad- vanced education and with a specific com- mitment to external teaching, which it shares with Queensland and New England. Federal Intervention In 1957 the Australian university system was rescued from chaos and near immola- tion by the commonwealth's entry into uni- versity financing, following the report of the Murray Committee. 2 In 1965, the Martin Committee recom- mended a binary system of tertiary educa- tion, which resulted in the identification, ul- timately, of a total of eighty-three, now re- duced to sixty-seven, colleges of advanced education (CAEs), of a status -described as "equal but different" in relation to universi- ties.3 The colleges comprise a range of institu- tions from several large central institutions of technology with at least a family re- semblance to MIT, through a large number of former teachers colleges, many of which have become multidisciplinary to a group of monodisciplinary colleges such as agricul- tural colleges and conservatories of music. A Grinding Halt? In common with other Western nations, Australia seems to have developed, in re- cent times, some community disenchant- ment with tertiary education and especially with universities. In association with the country's recent economic problems, a pro- cess of "stabilization" has been applied to federal funding of universities and a "no growth" situation has developed. It might be noted that the CAEs have also had the brake applied, though not quite as drasti- cally. The only growth area in the post- secondary field ·has been in technical education, the so-called TAFE (technical and further education) sector, which began to receive federal aid following the Kangan report of 1974. 4 Most recently a committee appointed by the commonwealth government to advise on the future of education and training, the Williams Committee, suggested the likely continuation of this trend, with most of the increase in aspirants to postsecondary edu- cation (resulting from population and eco- nomic growth) going to TAFE institutions. At the same time, the Williams Committee recommended that the boundaries between the sectors be clarified and urged in particu- lar that universities tighten up on their selection and admission procedures and give increased emphasis to research. 5 Funding Mechanisms It is rather ironic to note th~t, despite the constitutional reservation of education as a state power, none of the universities, though each was established under a state statute, could survive without common- wealth funding. The constitutional problem has been solved by a sleight of hand called special grants to the states. The same device has been employed not only in the other two tertiary sectors but also in both primary and secondary education. Funds for tertiary education are disbursed by the commonwealth on the advice of a Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), which has three advisory councils, one for each sector. In the case of the TAFE sector, there is a further stage of consultation with state boards variously entitled boards of ad- vanced education or boards of higher educa- tion. , One interesting aspect of federal funding was the decision of the Whitlam govern- ment in 1972 to increase university grants, provided the institutions concerned abolished tuition fees. Thus, theoretically, tertiary education is not only open to all but also free. Library Reviews A final historical note covers published sources for the development of academic li- braries themselves. University libraries were surveyed in 1934 as part of an over- view of Australian libraries by I\alph M unn of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, in as- sociation with Ernest R. Pitt, an Australian librarian. 6 They were looked at again by Lionel McColvin, city librarian of Australian Academic Libraries I 19 Westminster, in 1947, again as part of a general survey. 7 In 1961 Maurice F. Tauber completed the only in-depth survey of Aus- tralian library resources ever undertaken. 8 In 1978 Robert B. Downs looked specifically at academic and research library resources in Australia. 9 Neither college nor TAFE libraries have been the subject of published surveys, but the former were reviewed with some care over several years by a library subcommit- tee set up by the Commonwealth Advisory Committee on Colleges of Advanced Educa- tion and were mentioned in the reports . of that committee and its successors. 10 TAFE libraries were surveyed specifically by E. H. Flowers and A. J. Brown as part of the Kangan Committee's investigations in 1974. A very good statistical record of university library development is to be found from 1961 to date, originally in the text and later in the annual supplements to Australian Academic and Research Libraries and its predecessor, the Newssheet of the Univer- sity and College Libraries Section of the Li- brary Association of Australia. P Since 1969 the same source includes college libraries. There are no easily available sources of col- lated T AFE statistics. BOOKSTOCK The main feature of the bookstock of Au- stralian academic libraries has been its mushroom growth in recent years. In 1934 the six Australian university libraries were able to account for a total stock of fewer than 425,000 volumes, and of this some 55 percent was held in one library, that of the University of Sydney. By the end of 1978 the total bookstock had risen to 12,519,000 volumes. By far the greater portion of this growth had followed the availability of fed- eral funding from 1958 onward. There has also been a similar growth of the libraries' potential reader population (academic staff-full and part-time-and students-undergraduate and graduate, full and part-time, including ext~rnal students, on a simple head count). By 1977 the nine- teen university libraries served a potential direct population of 169,846. Although statistics are not so readily available for the libraries in the colleges of advanced education, there has also been 20 I College & Research Libraries • january 1980 like growth. Bookstock has increased from some 287,000 volumes in 1969 to more than 5,000,000 in 1977, with potential readers numbering 184,000 in 1977. For both university and CAE libraries the pattern is clearly the same: a massive in- crease in stock and a parallel increase in reader responsibilities. In terms of a crude measure of books available per reader, the improvement rate has been higher in the colleges than in the universities, but the relative levels of provision in the two sec- tors tell a different story. No comparable measurement can be made of TAFE bookstock. It appears, how- ever, that, once again, the "shot in the· arm" of federal funds has had a tremendous ef- fect. Total bookstock rose from approxi- mately 677,000 volumes to 1,100,000 be- tween 1974 and 1977. Unfortunately, the starting point was pathetically low, and the number of students at TAFE institutions, on a head count, is formidable inde.ed. Even allowing for the high proportion of part-time enrollments, it comprises a service load far beyond those handled by either the univer- sity or the college libraries. Quantitative Evaluations In an aftempt to assess collection ade- quacy more accurately, the Clapp-Jordan formula and its later refinements by Blan- chard have been applied to university and college collections. 12 The limitations of using such a fourteen-year-old yardstick must be appreciated. Bearing in mind the tendency noted ear- lier for Australian universities to attempt self-sufficiency, it may come as no surprise that only one library, that of the University of Sydney meets Clapp-Jordan and indeed Blanchard standards, and that it has only recently achieved this position. As table 1 shows, Sydney has far and away the largest bookstock and the largest accession rate. A more common pattern is demonstrated by Macquarie, a much more recently estab- lished library, where the Clapp-Jordan de- ficiency stood at 1,247,000 volumes in 1978, though it should be noted that this was a reduction of some 440,000 volumes over a decade. 13 If we attempt a rather less ambitious ex- cercise, it is possible, again by using the Clapp-Jordan formula in each case, to estab- lish that, in 1978, eighteen of the nineteen university libraries at least had some re- sources beyond those needed for under- graduate study and teaching and that the national total of this "surplus" amounted to some 7,468,000 volumes. The point is made simply to contrast the present situation with TABLE 1 AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITIES LIBRARIES IN 1978 Number of Order of Order of Order Name of Size of Order of Reader Reader Total Total of Size Institution Collection• Accessions• Accessions Places Places Expendituret Expenditure 1 Sydney 2,522 251 1 4,444 1 5,228 1 2 Queensland 1,146 61 3 3,138 5 4,637 2 3 Melbourne 998 66 2 3,503 3 4,230 6 4 Adelaide 977 52 6 2,333 8 3,020 7 5 Aust. Nat. Univ. 954 57 4 1,800 9 4,421 · 4 6 Monash 939 50 7 3,818 2 4,280 5 7 New South Wales 924 55 5 3,430 4 4,544 3 8 West. Aust. 747 45 8 2,711 6 2,677 8 9 Macquarie 563 37 10 2,500 7 2,389 9 10 New England 432 21 17 308 19 1,401 15 11 Flinders 419 33 11 1,071 11 1,500 14 12 Newcastle 385 26 14 832 13 1,607 11 13 Tasmania 374 16 19 1,030 12 ~.593 13 14 LaTrobe 370 31 13 1,463 10 2,348 10 15 James Cook 185 20 18 460 17 1,139 18 16 Wollongong 156 22 16 530 14 1,194 16 17 Deakin 151 32 12 515 15 1,605 12 18 Murdoch 142- 25 15 487 16 1,146 17 19 Griffith 134 41 9 438 18 986 19 SOURCE : Australian Academic and Research Libraries. Library Statistics, 1978. *Size of collection figures are x 000 bound volumes (including microform equivalents}. tAll figures are X A$000. that at the time of the Munn-Pitt report, when only three libraries had any holdings in excess of the Clapp-Jordan minima for undergraduate instruction and the national surplus totaled only 142,000 volumes. In 1978, with six libraries in addition to Sydney at, or within early sight of the one- million-volume mark, it does seem possible to claim some potential for higher education and research in Australian university librar- ies. As a group, and indeed library for library, Australian university libraries are beginning to measure up quite well to British univer- sity libraries, though very few would qualify for an Association of Research Libraries list- ing.14 It may be even more appropriate to apply this second calculation to CAE libraries since, though there are blurred edges be- tween the two sectors , the colleges are as- serted to be less concerned with higher education and research than are the univer- sities. Table 2 sets out the basic statistics for the larger CAE libraries. If we measure the Australian Academic Libraries I 21 Clapp- Jordan undergraduate teaching minimum for that institution against the bookstock of each, we come up with a result that is rather less depressing than the table suggests. In short, although only eleven of the sixty-seven CAE libraries would have had any "surplus" in 1978, given current acces- sion rates, a total of twenty-nine should be equipped for undergraduate teaching by the time this paper is published, and a decade of growth at the present rate would see the vast majority equally well placed. There would remain a handful of institutions, prin- cipally monodisciplinary colleges , with no real hope of ever achieving that modest pinnacle of success. One feature that distinguishes many CAE libraries is their relatively heavy reliance on audiovisual material. With some notable ex- · ceptions, of which the best example is Mac- quarie, Australian university libraries have been slow to develop in the nonbook area. The imagination boggles at applying Clapp-Jordan to TAFE libraries, and it might be argued that it would be unrealistic TABLE 2 LARG ER AUSTRALIAN COLLEG ES OF ADVANC ED EDUCATION LIBRARIES IN .1977 Number of Order of Order of Order Name of Size of Order of Reader Reader Total Total of Size Institution • Collectiont Accessionst Accessions Places Places Expendituret Expenditure 1 West. Aust. I. T . (A) 401 48 1 1,081 1 1,807 1 2 State Coli . (C) 275 20 4 345 10 1,178 4 Melbourne 3 Canberra CAE (A) 248 18 5 680 2 950 5 4 Royal Melbourne (A) 212 26 2 666 3 1,552 2 I.T. 5 Sydney Tea. Coli . (C) 202 11 1 287 12 446 11 6 Swinburne Coli . (A) 138 12 11 660 4 934 6 Tech. 7 New South Wales (A) 132 21 3 275 13 1,243 3 I.T. 8 South Aust. I.T. (A) 125 13 9 461 7 881 7 9 Tasmanian CAE (Aj 118 6 16 192 17 417 13 10 Mitchell CAE (B) 109 18 5 320 11 373 14 11 Torrens CAE (C~ 95 8 12 120 18 324 16 12 Ballarat CAE (B 94 4 17 375 8 296 17 13 Darling Downs (B) 93 17 8 512 6 705 8 I.A. E. 14 Caulfield I. T. (A) 92 7 14 636 5 643 9 15 Kelvin Grove CAE (C) 91 8 12 206 15 350 15 16 Adelaide CAE (C) 91 7 14 194 16 239 18 17 Riverina CAE ~:~ 90 13 9 240 14 548 10 18 Bendigo CAE 90 4 17 351 9 429 12 SOURCE: Australian Academic and Research Libraries. Library Statistics , 1977. •suffixed capital letters indicate the group of colleges to which the institution belongs: (A) Central Institutes of Technology (a group of eleven colleges); (B) Other "fi rs t generation" colleges (a group of fourteen colleges); (C) Former Teachers Colleges (a group of thirty-eight colleges); tSize of collection figures are X 000 bound volumes (including microform equivalents). tAll figures are x A$000. 22 I College & Research Libraries • january 1980 to undertake such an exercise. However, it must be stated that the leeway resulting from decades of neglect is so substantial that only a handful of TAFE libraries can hope to meet, in the foreseeable future, even the modest interim standard set by Brown and Flowers in the Kangan r.eport. ACCOMMODATION This article appears at just the right time, in that it is still possible to say that a feature of the commonwealth's intervention in ter- tiary education has been the great fillip given to academic library building. 15 Since 1959 every Australian university li- brary has been either housed or rehoused in a custom-built building of high quality, ex- cepting only two: the University of Adelaide Library, whose parent institution's re- stricted site has required a series of increas- ingly ingenious extensions to the library, and Deakin, the most recent foundation. College libraries, too, have benefited from the availability of capital funds, and there are several new buildings of interna- tional quality. Unfortunately, there are still many ill-housed libraries, including several of the larger ones. Very few TAFE institutions have either new or adequate library premises, but there may be hope in the continuation of a real increase in support in this sector. A somewhat unsatisfactory measure of ac- commodation is the percentage of the full- time student population that can be seated at any one time. In 1977 the median for Australian univer- sity libraries in this respect was 33.95 per- cent, with a high range of 46.6 percent and low of 9. 7 percent. For the CAE libraries treated in table 2, the median was 19.6 per- cent and the range from 33 to 9. 9 percent. Unfortunately, the recent shutdown in fund increases has been felt first ,in the ac- commodation area; and, particularly in the university field, there are a growing number of institutions facing the grim reality of a rapidly filling building with no prospect of relief. In this respect, the Australian recep- tion of the Atkinson Committee's report in the United Kingdom is interesting. 16 To date no serious suggestion has been made at an official level in support of the concept of the "self-renewing" library, or, worse still, the "steady state" library. It remains to be seen whether, when the crunch comes, sufficient priority will be given to library buildings within drastically limited funding. Already the University of Queensland, twice the recipient of funds for substantial building, is at the point of retir- ing annually-it ·hopes .only temporarily- the equivalent of its intake, before its on- campus stock has reached a satisfactory size. Accommodation problems of this kind do not assume the same immediate prominence in the other tertiary sectors, largely because stock expansion has not proceeded at the same rate. STAFF AND ORGANIZATION Table 3 demonstrates quite clearly the very considerable improvement over the years in staffing university libraries in rela- tion either to bookstock or to readers served, though the later figures in columns 2 and 3 reflect the results of the recent staff "freeze." Perhaps more. significantly, even allowing for the crudeness in the measures used, it indicates quite clearly the notable shift of emphasis from technical services to reader services. While technical services staff, by and large, has been increased at a rate commen- surate with the growth in accessions, reader services staff has grown considerably more rapidly than the number of readers to be served. This second trend is not as clear in CAE libraries. Compared with the unit load of 1:149 for reader services staff in university libraries in 1977, the average for the larger CAE libraries was only 1:253, with a high range of 1:637. On the other hand, the me- dian work load for technical services staff in the larger CAE libraries was only 1:841 as compared with the university median of 1:960. The low range in the CAEs was actu- ally 1:438. Even bearing in mind the gross- ness of the calculations, there seems to be some room for redeployment here. This would be wise, since all advice to date has been that, given modest bookstock, there is additional need to develop reader ser- vices.17 It is far too early to distinguish trel).ds in TAFE libraries, since they are only now emerging from their Dark Ages. Australian Academic Libraries I 23 TABLE 3 StAFF WORK LOADS 1934-77 AT ALL AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITIES DURING 1934-77 Books x 103 Readers Total Divided Divided Year Staff by Staff by Staff 1934 36 ll.8 217 1949 135 6.9 231 1952 188 6.1 159 1955 212 6.4 141 1957 269 5.8 132 1959 365 5.4 126 1962 591 4.5 104 1968 1,330 3.9 88 1971 1,680 4.3 76 1972 1,861 4.3 71 1973 1,924 4.4 69 1974 2,066 4.4 77 1975 2,160 4.6 73 1976 2,226 4.9 74 1977 2,260 5.1 75 Organization The staffing structures of Australian academic libraries present, on the whole, a fairly conventional picture. The traditional organization by departments is still common but, since the mid-1960s, a substantial number of university libraries have moved to a functional divisional structure. The current excitement in the U.K. con- cerning subject specialization has not aroused a notable response in the an- tipodes. Monash and New South Wales are examples of university libraries essaying a subject-divisional organization, and Adelaide has moved farthest toward a staff structure based on subject specialists. Inevitably, there is a degree of "subject streaming" in both technical and reader services routines in many libraries. Participation in management has been the center of considerable discussion in recent years, and the recorded experience of the oldest and largest of the group of libraries, highlighting both the value and the practical limits associated with participation, will sound very familiar to American ears.1s Two current problems of staff qualification and organization have their roots in the slow emergence of a three-tier structure at least in university libraries. The professional cadre has always been distinguished by the requirement that applicants hold a univer- sity degree and a library qualification. Leav- Ace. Readers Technical Divided by Technical Divided by Reader Reader Services Services Services Services Staff Staff Staff Staff 23 944 18 556 69 509 52 510 96 640 73 396 109 733 82 370 132 786 100 353 187 1,137 141 326 304 876 228 271 577 773 626 165 695 734 814 158 754 757 896 147 778 838 953 140 849 852 968 163 866 897 1,070 147 853 914 1,103 150 828 960 1,141 149 ing aside qualifications secured through the LAA' s examination system since this system is now being phased out, professional qual- ifications from library schools have been se- cured following the first degrees, the nor- mal award being a graduate diploma. Some colleges of advanced education are now of- fering bachelor degrees in librarianship, in the form of integrated three- or four-year · courses, and a problem area is the ac- ceptability of these for professional posts .in academic libraries. The second difficulty is the distinguishing qualification for middle-grade or paraprofes- sional staff. Here again, academic libraries have yet to espouse openly the library tech- nician qualifications offered by some TAFE institutions and beginning to be recognized by the LAA. READER SERVICES To emphasize a point made in the previ- ous section, there has been more than just a swing of the pendulum toward emphasizing reader services in academic libraries-and especially university libraries-in Aus- tralia.19 Indeed, the last fifteen years or so have seen · a considerable movement of outreach to the reader, typified by the standing reader assistance unit at the University of New South Wales and the sophisticated, in- tegrated reader education packages de- veloped at Macquarie. 24 I College & Research Libraries • January 1980 In recent years computerized literature searching has developed very rapidly. AUSINET, an Australian data base consorti- um, has existed since 1977. AUSINET mounts, in effect, the relatively recent files of major overseas data bases, but . it also accommo- dates, increasingly, local data bases such as the Australian National Bibliography (ANB), the Australian Public Affairs Infor- .mation Service (APAIS), both mounted by the National Library of Australia, and Bib- liographic Information on South East Asia (BISA) put up by the University of Sydney. In addition, many university libraries regularly access DIALOG and ORBIT; and. MEDLINE has been available in Canberra through a network funded partly by univer- sity libraries since 1975 and, in batch mode, since 1972. AUTOMATION Mention of computerized searching leads to a general consideration of library automa- tion. In this area it could be suggested that Australian university libraries-with which can be included some larger CAE libraries-present a fairly familiar pattern to North American eyes. In several institu- tions, particularly the older or better en- dowed, there are in-house treatments of various · aspects of library routine. There is little use of turnkey systems, and there is too little interinstitutional cooperation. Overall there is, it must be confessed, an unimpressive degree of concern for the systems approach to a library's totality of ac- tivities. An IBM punched card circulation system installed in the University of Sydney Li- brary in 1964 prefigured a decade of fairly rapid movement into automation. Special purpose listings have been widely de- veloped. Half a dozen university libra~ies have batch-mode cataloging operations, and there are significant data banks of machine- readable cataloging, for example at New South Wales and Sydney, each with some 300,000 or so records in this form. Increas- ing use is made of AMRS, the National Li- brary of Australia's Australian MARC Rec- ord Service. Several circulation systems have been de- veloped in-house, of which the most sophis- ticated is probably CIRCUS, Sydney's on- line operation. Several of the larger CAEs have acquisition and/or cataloging modules operational, for example, the New South Wales Institute of Technology, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, and the Western Australian Institute ofTechnology. COOPERATION Interlibrary cooperation has been a fea- ture of Australian library development: and, as noted below, academic libraries, particu- larly university libraries, have played an in- creasingly important part in resource shar- ing on a national scale. · Within the academic libraries themselves there are long-standing mechanisms for cooperation, and there are interesting new forms emerging. The Committee of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) dates back, intermit- tently and under various titles, to 1928. Though meeting only annually, CAUL members maintain continued contact with one another by the device of multiaddres- sing inquiries or information of general interest. CAUL's relationship with the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee (A VCC), the group of executive heads of universities, has been rather delicate at times, the latter body being somewhat reluctant to be lec- tured or pressured. In recent times, how- ever, the AVCC has not discouraged sub- missions from CAUL and has, in effect, ac- cepted CAUL's .advice in some of its dealings with the Universities Council of the Tertiary Education Commission. The commission has itself developed informal contacts with CAUL. ALCAE, the Association of Librarians in Colleges of Advanced Education, was actu- ally encouraged into existence by the Com- monwealth Advisory Committee on Colleges of Advanced Education. It functions in an analogous way to CAUL. There is no really effective mechanism yet for communication among TAFE librar- ians. Libraries of all three sectors of tertiary education are represented on AACOBS (the Australian Advisory Committee on Biblio- graphical Services), a body that has some of the characteristics of the Association of Re- search Libraries in the U.S. and of the Standing Conference of National and U'ni- versity Libraries in the U.K. All universities are represented directly on AACOBS by their librarians, but the other two sectors have onJy group representation on it. AACOBS operates in part through re- gional committees, one in each of the seven capital cities, which provide an opportunity, and sometimes a focus, for continuing coop- eration at the local level. Networks Of considerable interest is the emergence of more formalized devices for resource sharing on a regional or type of library basis. In Victoria CAVAL (Cooperative Ac- tion by Victorian Academic Libraries) brings together, as a registered company, all uni- versity libraries in the state, the state li- brary, and certain of the CAE libraries. CAVAL's first target is a shared cataloging operation. CLANN (College Libraries Activities Network in New South Wales) is more ad- vanced than CAVAL. It associates in a shared cataloging network a number of CAE libraries spread throughout the state. Finally, a feasibility study is currently in progress into the establishment of a perma- nent office of library cooperation, the mem- bers of which will be five of the six univer- sity libraries in New South Wales, the New South Wales Institute of Technology, and the state library. Once again a high priority is a shared cataloging operation. All these developments, prompted by the need for more effective resource sharing at a time of shrinking finances, are being planned, hopefully, to be compatible and with the conscious intent that they be inte- grated into the national network toward which the National Library has been direct- ing its efforts for some years. THE NATIONAL ROLE An important aspect of academic, particu- larly university, library operations in Aus- tralia is the significant national role that these libraries play. Traditionally, the nation's bibliographical resources were to be found overwhelmingly in the independent "national" libraries set up, prefederation, by the six colonies and that are now all named state libraries. The Australian Academic Libraries I 25 rapid growth of the National Library, estab- lished originally as the library of the Com- monwealth Parliament, added a new dimen- sion after World War II, and the library network of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) had seemed, until recently, to be developing as a national science collection. The flow of federal funds to university li- braries in the 1960s completely changed that picture. Within two decades university libraries have become, overwhelmingly, in volume count, the largest element in the nation's bibliographic resource. This situation is reflected in the statistics of interlibrary loans in Australia, in the ac- tive involvement of academic libraries in all cooperative ventures, either nationally or at the regional or local level, and in the sub- stantial direct use made of university library resources and services by the community at large. In contrast to what was for long the stance of university librarians in the U.K., academic librarians in Australia have been closely involved in the affairs of the profes- sional association, the Library Association of Australia, and the LAA' s qualifications have been . both accepted and promoted by academic libraries. CONCLUSION The subtitle of this article suggests the rapid and substantial changes that have come over academic libraries in Australia in the past twenty years. It also draws atten- tion to the distance yet to be traveled to achieve an adequate standard of service to the academic community and to the nation. In fact, there have been three successive revolutions in Australian academic libraries, each resulting from the entry of the federal government into funding postsecondary education. The first and most nearly complete revo- lution has been in university libraries. In twenty short years they have changed out of sight, both in degree and in kind, to the point where they have altered the face of Australian academe and the pattern and quality of the nation's library resources.· The second revolution has been in CAE libraries, where twelve years or so of com- monwealth funding have transformed an 26 I College & Research Libraries • January 1980 area of deep depression into one of op- timism and a negligible level of library pro- vision . and service into one which is in sight of minimum adequacy. The third revolution is occurring in TAFE libraries. Here the improvement in stock and services, while it has been remarkable enough, is dwarfed still by the magnitude of the task yet to be achieved. The real change, however, has been in attitudes toward the library and its staff, and here a mere five years of federal support has brought real hope and enthusiasm where before there were only apathy and despair. It is the more distressing, accordingly, that Australia's economic situation and changing government attitudes have so slowed the tempo of all three revolutions as to put their ultimate success in some jeopardy. Some twelve years ago an editor subtitled an article by the present writer on Austra- lian university libraries: "A Gloomy Conclu- sion?"20 Another decade's experience really does make the use of such a term inappro- priate. The achievements of the unfinished revolution have been such, in the writer's view, as permanently to preclude the possi- bility of slipping back to the parlous and quite insignificant position that academic li- braries occupied in Australia at the time of the M unn- Pitt report. There will be delay and disappointment; there should no longer be disaster. REFERENCES 1. Harrison Bryan, "The Development of Academic and Research Libraries in Aus- tralia , "in Harrison Bryan and Gordon Greenwood, eds., Design for Diversity: Li- brary Services for Higher Education and Re- search in Australia (Brisbane : Univ. of Queensland Pr., 1977) , p.1-46. 2. Australia. Committee on Australian Universi- ties , Report (Canberra, 1957). 3. Australia. Committee on the Future of Ter- tiary Education in Australia, Report (Can- berra, 1964-65). 4. Australia. Committee on Technical and Fur- ther Education , Report (Canberra, 1974). 5. Australia. Committee on Enquiry into Educa- tion and Training, Report (Canberra, 1979). 6. Ralph Munn and Ernest R. Pitt, Australian Libraries (Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research, 1935) . 7. Lionel R. McColvin, Public Libraries in Aus- tralia (Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research , 1947) . 8 . Maurice F. Tauber, Resources of Australian Libraries (Canberra: Australian Advisory Council on Bibliographical Services, 1963). 9 . Robert B. Downs, Australian and New Zea- land Library Resources (London : Mansell , 1979) . 10. Australia . Commonwealth Advisory Commit- tee on Colleges of Advanced Education, 1st & 2nd Reports (Canberra, 1966, 1969). Aus- tralian Commission on Advanced Education, 3rd Report (Canberra, 1972) . 11. Australian Academic and Research Libraries (Melbourne: University and College Libraries Section, Library Association of Australia, 1970- ) and its s':lpplement, Library Statistics , 1972- Library Association of Australia. University and College Libraries Section, Newssheet, V.3-10 (1962-69). 12. Verner W. Clapp and Robert T . Jordan, "Quantitative Criteria for Adequacy of Academic Library Collections," College & Research Libraries 26:371-80 (Sept. 1965) . J. R. Blanchard, " Planning the Conversion of a College to a University Library," College & Research Libraries 29:297--302 (July 1968). 13 . Harrison Bryan, "Australian University Li- braries in 1968," in Library Association of Australia, Proceedings of the 15th Biennial Conference, Adelaide, 1969 (Sydney, 1971), p .91-110. 14 . Harrison Bryan, University Libraries in Brit- ain: A New Look (London: Bingley, 1976) . 15. Harrison Bryan, "A Decade and a Half of Li- brary Building (1959-73)," in Bryan and Greenwood, eds., Design for Diversity, p.413-52. 16. Capital Provision for University Libraries: Report of a Working Party (London: H.M.S.O, 1976). 17. Harrison Bryan and Evelyn L. Hean, The Function of the Library in a College of Ad- vanced Education (Sydney: the authors, 1970). 18 . Harrison Bryan, WOPSO: An Exercise in Consultation (Sydney: Kuring-gai College of Advanced Education, 1978). 19. Jean P. Whyte, "Direct Services to Readers," in Bryan and Greenwood, eds., Design for Diversity, p.271--312. 20. Harrison Bryan, "Australian University Li- braries: A Gloomy Conclusion?" Library Journal 92 :4113-16 (Nov. 15, 1967).