The general direction of work in the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts for the past two years has been in accordance with the Business Plan 2003-05 which was approved by the management committee on 15 May 2003. This plan takes into account several higher level plans including Tasmania Together, the Department of Education’s Learning Together and the State Library of Tasmania’s own business plan.
The mission of the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts is to ensure that Henry Allport’s bequest is highly valued and enjoyed by its beneficiaries, the people of Tasmania, and is recognised for its major contribution to Australia’s heritage.
The values and principles which support that mission are:
- providing maximum access to the collection within the limits of preservation and security considerations;
- maintaining the highest standards in collection development and service; and
- encouraging participation of the Tasmanian community in the development and preservation of the collection.
Business plan
The goals of the business plan are:
- Access to collection items
- Public awareness and appreciation of the collection within Tasmania and more widely
- Conservation and preservation of the collection for future generations
- Endowment funds and other resources for developing and maintaining the collection
Goal 1 - Access to collection items
There were 8,683 visitors in 2004-05, compared with 7,877 in 2003-04 (an increase of 10.2 per cent). There were 1,259 visitors in April alone, the second-highest monthly total on record.
Staff responded to 288 reference and 221 directional enquiries from members of the public, tourists, academics and other researchers (a decrease of 30 per cent on the previous year). The total does not include questions asked during guided tours of the collection.
There were 297 requests for copies of collection items, supplied via photographic prints, email or on CD-ROMs.
One hundred and ninety six items from the collections were reproduced in books, reports, theses, brochures, signs, exhibitions and television and film documentaries and on websites.
Goal 2 - Public awareness and appreciation of the collection within Tasmania and more widely
Exhibitions and displays
Follow the Sun: Australian Travel Posters 1930s-1950s (a travelling exhibition from the National Library of Australia, supplemented with material from the Heritage Collections) was on display from 30 July to 25 September. This was the first travelling exhibition to be hosted by Allport. The exhibition was opened by Mae Adams, then the manager of travelling exhibitions for the National Library of Australia.
The second Heritage Collections exhibition to mark Tasmania’s Bicentenary of European Settlement, Finders & Keepers: Collectors and their treasures from the State Library’s Heritage Collections, was opened on Thursday, 14 October by Professor Lucy Frost, Professor of English at the University of Tasmania.
Different Readings: a contemporary interpretation of the Allport Furniture Collection was opened by Robyn Archer on 30 March and continued until 1 July. This exhibition was curated by John Smith, Head of Furniture Design at the University of Tasmania’s School of Art.
Different Readings, its catalogue (designed by Lorinda Taylor) and associated public and education activities won a 2005 Learning Together Southern Branch award for educational excellence.
In December 2004 Allport staff presented a Victorian Christmas display in the Allport dining room.
Both the management committee and staff are aware of the increasing demands that exhibitions place both on staff resources and on the collections. The development and installation of exhibitions occupies considerable staff time; and the proportion of exhibitable items which have been displayed and must now rest before they can be exhibited again is increasing. While the Allport collections will remain the principal focus of the exhibition program, staff will continue to investigate the possibilities for hosting travelling or externally curated exhibitions and for developing exhibitions which draw more widely on the State Library’s Heritage Collections.
Promotion and publicity
The Different Readings exhibition received good publicity during and after the Ten Days on the Island festival (1-10 April 2005), especially on ABC television and radio and in The Mercury. David Trubridge, a New Zealand designer, presented a talk in the Allport Library on 2 April and floor talks were presented by the participating artists, the curator John Smith and the Art Curator (Allport) each weekday during the festival. Different Readings also featured in a Ten Days exhibition roundup by Daniel Thomas, published in the May 2005 issue of Art Monthly Australia.
New State Library of Tasmania merchandise launched in October 2004 included two sets of greeting cards based on fine art items in the Allport collections - one of Tasmanian berries by the Tasmanian artist Ada Frances Butler and one of seabirds from John Gould’s Birds of Australia.
An audience research survey conducted in February 2005 aimed to gain a better understanding of public knowledge of, and responses to, the Allport collections. The survey shows clearly that the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts is highly regarded by a wide-ranging audience whose members value both the temporary exhibitions shown in the Allport Gallery and Print Room and the permanent displays of British decorative arts.
Staff provided guided tours and other services to a wide range of special-interest groups including members of the Retired Teachers Association, the Queen Mary Club and the Furniture History Society (Melbourne). Students from several schools and colleges including Molesworth, Princes Street and Blackmans Bay Primary Schools, Lambert School, St. Mary’s College, Elizabeth College and The Friends’ School also visited Allport.
The Allport collections also featured largely in talks on the State Library’s Heritage Collections which staff presented at the Mid-City School for Seniors (August 2004) and Vaucluse Nursing Home (October 2004).
The Senior Librarian (Heritage Collections) presented a talk, Allport, Crowther and Craig: Three collectors and the State Library in the Allport Library on two occasions during the Finders & Keepers exhibition. The paper was originally delivered to the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand Conference in Melbourne in October 2004.
The Canadian Consul General hosted a cocktail party in Allport prior to the first performance of the play Tempting Providence at the nearby Playhouse Theatre during Ten Days on the Island. In June, the Friends of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery held an evening function in Allport to view Different Readings.
The 2005 Library Week lecture Inspired by Nature: Reflections from three Tasmanian writers on Saturday 28 May featured three highly regarded authors who spoke in the Allport Library about their experience and philosophy of the natural environment.
Loans
The manuscript Report to Thomas Anstey of an expedition from Oatlands to Waterloo Point VDL, to investigate a new line of road, 24 May to 3 June 1829 by Jorgen Jorgenson was loaned to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery for a display mounted for the visit of Crown Princess Mary of Denmark on 11 March.
Goal 3 - Conservation and preservation of the collection for future generations
The Department of Education provided funding in November 2004 for comprehensive surveys of the pamphlet and manuscript collections, to identify significant items and determine their physical condition and conservation needs. (These surveys continued the program to meet the Tasmania Together target that, by 2020, 100 per cent of significant items in the State’s heritage collections will be preserved.) Staff from the State Library’s Heritage Collections carried out the significance assessments. Penny Carey-Wells, an artist and paper-maker and Conservation Officer with the Archives Office of Tasmania, assessed the conservation requirements of manuscript record groups and pamphlets which were identified as both significant and in need of conservation treatment; David Walker, a librarian and professional photographer experienced in paper conservation, assessed the condition and conservation needs of 1,110 photographs and albums in the Allport photographic collection.
These surveys have highlighted the excellence and the cultural value of the collections; as well as the extent of resources required to ensure that the collections are adequately maintained and conserved. The management committee is concerned that adequate conservation resources are at present not available to the State Library for this work.
The management committee continued to support the conservation and maintenance of the collection by funding:
- the restoration of four items of furniture;
- conservation treatment of one oil painting by the Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation, University of Melbourne; and
- cleaning and restoration of eight ceramic items.
The State Library provided funding to continue the program of making storage boxes for fragile objects and books.
Goal 4 - Endowment funds and other resources for developing and maintaining the collection
Book acquisitions of note included:
- A Specimen of the Botany of New Holland by James Edward Smith. (London, published by J. Sowerby, 1793.) [Purchase]
- A narrative of the expedition to Botany Bay: with an account of New South Wales, its productions, inhabitants, & c. by Watkin Tench, second edition. (London, published by Debrett, 1789.) [Purchase]
- Journal of Captain Cook’s last voyage to the Pacific Ocean on ‘Discovery’ in the years 1776, 1777, 1779... by John Rickman. (Dublin, published by Messrs Price and Whitestone and 17 others, 1781.) [Purchase]
- Memoirs of the Life and Travels of John Ledyard by Jared Sparks. (London, published by Henry Colburn, 1828.) [Purchase]
- Polus Antarcticus: Terra Australis Incognita. First state. (Amsterdam, published by Henricus Hondius, 1639.) [Purchase]
- Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, vols.9-10. (London, published by the Society, 1808-11). The volume includes Description of two new species of Didelphis from Van Diemen’s Land by GP Harris - the first scientific description of the thylacine and the Tasmanian devil, with one plate depicting both creatures - and On the Proteaceae of Jussieu by Robert Brown, a landmark work of classification and description of the proteas. [Purchase]
Fine arts acquisitions included:
- New South Wales Wolf. Unknown lithographer. Lithograph, c.1835. [Purchase]
- A View of Mt Wellington and Hobart Town Looking Across the Derwent from Kangaroo Bay. Unknown Artist. Oil on canvas, c.1835. [Purchase]
- Sir Jas Smith, President of the Linnaean Society. Engraving from a bust by Bullock, c.1810. [Purchase]
- Brady’s Bay, Port Arthur, V.D.L. by John Skinner Prout. Watercolour, 1845. [Purchase]
- Mount Ida Lake St. Clair V.D.L. by John Skinner Prout. Watercolour, 1845. [Purchase]
- Six watercolours by Frances Russell Nixon. 1840s. [Purchase]
- Twelve watercolours of botanical specimens by William Buelow Gould. c.1830. [Purchase]
- [Port Arthur - Round Tower and Steps] by CFL Allport. Oil on board, undated. [Purchase]
Decorative arts and objects:
- Flora Tasmanica, a set of six plates in Southern Ice Porcelain made by Les Blakebrough, decorated with botanical prints designed by Lauren Black. 2004. [Purchase]
- Gold travel pass for the Tasmanian Main Line Railway, owned by Cecil Allport. [Purchase]
Staff
The management committee is grateful to all of the staff of the State Library whose work contributes to the development of the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts.
The committee is concerned that, in the next few years, several of these staff members may elect to retire. It has therefore requested that measures be taken to capture their knowledge of the collections through oral history and other means.
Management committee
The management committee met three times in the year, on 11 August, 1 December and 23 March.
Membership of the committee remained unchanged. The members are:
- Mr John Upcher (Chairperson) (nominated by the Trustees of the estate of Henry Allport);
- Mrs Catherine Ackland (nominated by the Trustees of the estate of Henry Allport);
- Dr AV Brown, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (nominated by the Board of Trustees);
- Mr Keith Adkins (appointed by the Minister for Education); and
- Ms Siobhan Gaskell, Director (Library and Information Services) (nominated by the secretary of the Department of Education).
John Upcher
Chairperson,
Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts Management Committee
Employment