Address to the Librarians of Australia -Mitchell Library, Sydney. 19th September 1980

Mrs Wran - Librarians - and anyone else concerned about the future of books in a
debased world ....

Everybody must know by now that I can't make a speech, I can only read one - which
isn't inappropriate when speaking to librarians. I must say I was pretty horrified when
I was asked to do this today, but I felt I had to for several reasons. In the first
place, you librarians, as guardians of the printed word, are such important members of
society. Then I owed it to Neville Wran for his interest in the arts. We might have had
some arch-Philistine, like others I shan't name. There are also sentimental reasons for
my being here. The first day I made, or read a speech from my trembling paper, protesting
against a project which could have destroyed Centennial and Moore Parks, the man who is
now our Premier was on the same platform. Again we were together at the Opera House on
an occasion when it seemed to many Australian artists and intellectuals that we were
really getting somewhere at last. But we were slapped down. I like to think that before
I die we shall achieve the state I still envisage and that Nev Wren may play an import-
ant part in accomplishing it. I know this is supposed to be an a-political occasion, but
to be realistic, no occasion is a-political today.

Back to the Libr'y, however! I first came, or was brought to the Mitchell
when I can 't have been more than three or four years old. I had come with my parents to
look at a collection of early New South Wales stamps given by my uncle H.L. White, a phil-
atelist, ornithologist, and bibliophile of earlier this century. The collection was ar-
ranged in cabinets standing at the end of what is still the reading room of the Mitchell-
before the sanctuary, as I see it. I got out of hand, as I usually did, and ran clatter-
ing over the polished floor, till the Librarian -her name was Miss Flower, I seem to re-
member -came up and said, 'SSShh! All the poor people are reading.' She seemed to imply
they were in some way sick. I looked round and couldn't see any signs of sickness in the
readers. It rather puzzled me, but she didn't give me time to work it out or ask questions
She led me up to an enormous, yellow-brown globe, and set it spinning to attract my attent-
ion. I found it momentarily of far more interest than any sheets of black old stamps or
sick readers.