J. B. Chifley Building
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Country | Australia |
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Established | 1948 |
Location | Canberra |
Website | http://anulib.anu.edu.au |
The Australian National University Library is part of the Australian National University, one of the world's major research universities.
"To achieve excellence in the provision and promotion of information services to meet the research, teaching and learning needs of the University". [1]
The Australian National University (ANU) Library has its foundations in the appointment of the first University Librarian, Arthur Leopold Gladstone McDonald (1898–1981) in early 1948 [2]. The importance of the establishment of the ANU Library in the development of the University was such that McDonald was appointed by the Interim Council before any of the professors [3].
Initially McDonald and several assistants were housed in Ormond College at the University of Melbourne [4], where they began to form the collection. At the end of 1950 the collection, which had grown to approximately 40, 000 volumes, was transferred to Canberra, to be located in the Canberra Community Hospital and nearby huts [5]. Over the course of the 1950s the collection grew steadily, and by the time of McDonald's retirement in 1960 the collection had grown to 150,000 volumes (excluding pamphlets) [6].
The ANU Library collection is housed in 5 specialised library branches.
The Art and Music Library, located in the School of Art, services both the School of Art and School of Music. It is the principal fine arts library at the ANU, and holds material on visual arts in many formats including: books, exhibition catalogues, videos, CD Roms, DVDs, slides (more than 70,000 35mm slides), journals and magazines. The ANU’s music collections are also held in this library; material is held in many formats, including: performance scores, CDs, LPs, books, collected works, journals and electronic databases.
The Library also provides free membership to Visual Arts Access & Open School of Music students.