Rambles - opinion polls, a dispute at the opera with just a dash about writing

Yesterday's post (Will PM Gillard win the next election? And possibly why) drew a comment pointing to the latest poll showing an apparently stronger than expected result for the Newman Government in Queensland. This contrasted with my perception that it had been slipping in the polls, something that I would have expected at this stage in the life of any change government,

My interest lay in the impact that the new(ish) governments in the Eastern states were having on the Gillard Government's chances, but I hadn't seen the poll so I went investigating. In a piece on Pollytics  (Qld State Polling and Bad Analysis) Possum Comitatus points to the methodological difference between this latest poll and alternative measures. The later suggest that the the position of the Newman Government has indeed weakened.

At his place, Don Aitkin wonders about the future of the Greens - Go the Greens! (But where?). I wonder, too. Meantime, marcellous has been in disagreement with Don (As I was saying) on Opera, more precisely what it is and is not. I am not an opera lover, although I have enjoyed those performances I have been too. I browse marcellous' descriptions of the various concerts he goes to in part for the writing, in part because it is another slice of local life.

In a somewhat loose segue, over on Club Troppo, Richard Tsukamasa Green's Australian Art : In the suburbs, and below them begins:

Last week I was reading Why Nations Fail. The topic is of close interest to me, but the book was an aggravating mix of the detailed and insightful ideas, and of furious handwaving substituting for a central framework[fn1]. The day was too pleasant for aggravation, and called for greater things. So I turned from the topic of institutions to another topic in which I have a deep, but decidedly niche interest in.

Dog walking in Newcastle drains, and what I like the most in Australian art.

Attracted by this introduction, I read on. Like Richard, I am interested in the variety and detail of local life. Like Richard, I think that literature and film is somewhat unrepresentative of the variety in Australian life. Like Richard, I think that children's books are probably the best portrayal of that variety. However, I have to part company with him on his typology.

Australian art (in the form of literature and film) is afflicted, Richard suggests, with three horrible Australias that substitute for the Australias we actually live in.

The first is the fake hinterland. The small country town, the drover, the bush. Australia has always been mainly urban, but this doesn’t rid us of the idea that the rural is an authentic part of a nation’s soul, and the city a false one – so we end up with a literary bush that represents neither Australia, nor even the bush that exists. We should be thankful I guess. This distrust of the urban led to pogroms elsewhere, here it just led to shitty literature.

The second is focus group suburbia. Apparently the same demographers that control political campaigns also write dramas for television. They’re understanding of the country is as strong, and as fruitful in both contexts. The resulting product is for an average Australia in suburban Sydney or Melbourne that doesn’t exist, and is resolutely (and carefully) boring.

The third is determined to address the chronic underrepresentation of middle class white people on TV. They’re there to remind you that the self conscious Fitzroy/Newtown monoculture is fascinatingly distinct, despite all evidence to the contrary. To remind you that all one needs to know about an entire society is found in a shallow pond of wealthy lawyers.

Looking at this typology and subsequent remarks left me with the feeling that Richard might actually be guilty of some of the same sins that he accuses others' of! 

Will PM Gillard win the next election? And possibly why

Here in NSW and also the ACT, today is the Labour Day public holiday. The holiday marks the achievement of an eight hour working day and is held on different dates across Australia because an eight hour day was achieved on different dates in the various colonies. For my part, the holiday gave me a little time to browse across my various interests. 

The relationship between sons and fathers is often complicated. I was reminded of this by Ramana's post Faces. Here Ramana is speaking a little more broadly, but the post led me to do a Google search on a half remembered book title, journey through my father. I still can't remember the exact name of the book, but the search generated a range of references dealing with the complexity in the relationship. I also enjoyed Ramana's Seredipity? Synchronicity?.

I have written a couple of posts recently - Curious cows Walcha-Nowendoc Road was one, Armidale - the sounds of distant bagpipe music a second - that attempt to capture the serendipity of the moment, Life is full of fascination, of strange by-ways to be enjoyed. In Faces, Ramana draws from the concept of the Janus god, of two faces. Technically, it seems that Janus (our month of January comes from Janus) had two faces because the god looked to the future and the past. I didn't actually know that. The opening stanza of the poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850 - 1919) captures one aspect of the two faces that many of us would know. 

Laugh, and the world laughs with you:
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth
Must borrow its mirth,
It has trouble enough of its own

For a blog that it often classified as a political blog, there has been remarkably little politics on this blog recently. It's partly that I have been busy on other things, partly that I have had little useful to add. However, because we are now at something of a transition point in Australian politics, I thought that I would make a comment.

Sometime ago, I commented on the difficulty that PM Julia Gillard faced in finding that quiet place on which to stand while she regrouped. Events kept pushing her. Now, however, the opinion polls are showing a slow shift back to the Labor Party, giving her a little time. There is a tendency to want  to explain this in simple terms. The carbon tax is in and the sky hasn't yet fallen. It's a little more than that.

At  least in his public utterances, Opposition leader Abbott is not a subtle man. He crafted a small number of messages and then hammered them relentlessly: one was the cost of the carbon tax, a second stop the boats, a third the need to control Government spending. This approach was very effective, but is now losing traction.

It was always going to be the case that the affects of the carbon tax would take time to work their way through the system. Just looking at the commentary and analysis, there is actually far more serious criticism of the tax than there was in the past. Mr Abbott's problem is that this doesn't matter. In terms of message, the sky hasn't fallen. On stop the boats, the Government has effectively neutralised the issue through a combination of inquiry and adoption of key Opposition planks. It remains a divisive issue within the general community, but is no longer one where many in the community believes that the Opposition would actually do better. On the need to control Government spending, we see the Government's constant focus on budget surplus, while Mr Abbott himself has announced new spending initiatives. There is another factor here as well, and that is the presence of Coalition Governments in the three most populous states all engaged in cuts. That hurts.

The Australian economy is weakening. This graph from the ABS shows the slow but steady decline in Australian job vacancies. The fall is mot pronounced in in public sector job vacancies. In August 2012, public sector job vacancies were  down 9.0 per cent from May 2012, and at the lowest level since May 2004.

All this has affected the Federal Opposition to the benefit of the ALP. The problems don't end there.

In Queensland, the Newman Government is now seen by an increasing number of Queenslanders as just too ideological for its own good. In Victoria, the impact of some of the cuts such as those to technical education appear to have side-effects that were not properly foreseen by the Government. In NSW, the O'Farrell Government has its own problems.

I am now prepared to call the NSW move to mega Departments a failure and for the reasons that I outlined earlier. They have added to overhead while complicating decision making in an already sclerotic system. However, Mr O'Farrell has another problem, and one not of his own making. During the long years of the previous Labor Government, spin reached the point that nobody believed a word that the Government said.

This disbelief transferred to the new Government. Mr O'Farrell's challenge was to find a way to make people believe again. He has failed. The NSW Government is actually trying to do new things. Unlike Mr Newman in Queensland, it adopted a cautious approach. And yet, the message hasn't got across, in part because the language used is much the same.

All this helps Ms Gillard. For his part, Mr Abbott is trying to change track. Journalists have noted and measured with glee the change in the pattern of questions at question time. He has started talking about policy more broadly. Yet he will have a hard time getting the new messages across simply because he has been so focused and relentless.

Does this mean that the PM can win the next election? I don't know, although I think that she has a far better chance than current polls would suggest. There is a very particular reason for this.

Borrowing and altering a concept from the on-line world, Government decisions have a very long tail, as do events in the economy. The pain inflicted by Premier Newman in Queensland may be in that state's interest. But in any fundamental restructure, it takes a fair while for the gains to flow. Mr Abbott doesn't have that time. There is a pretty fair chance that by the time Ms Gillard goes to the polls, the pain in Queensland, NSW and Victoria will still be there. The economy is even more problematic, a wild card that none can control.

I generally avoid economic forecasts. I just don't know enough. There are too many variables. But I have to say that there is a pretty fair chance that the economy will be down by the time Ms Gillard goes to the polls. Normally. this would favour the Opposition since the Coalition is seen as better economic managers. In this case and considering events at a state level as well as Mr Abbott's approach, I suspect that the economy may work in the Government's favour; a sure pair of hands, as Treasurer Swan would say. Of course, if the economy is better, the Government will try to claim credit!

I must say that I'm really tempted to call the next federal election for the ALP. That's really chancing my arm! Yet the probabilities look far better than I had expected.

Sunday Essay - Howard, history & the national curriculum

My main post today is on my history blog, Train Reading - Gammage, the Aborigines & the environment. The post took a long time to write. Here just a personal comment.

By it's very nature, the present imposes a mind-lock on our interrelation of the past. It determines the questions we ask of the evidence. It also leads us to reject things that don't fit in with our views, to argue for things that do fit. Historiography, the writing of history, is always personal and political.

I haven't attempted to chart the reactions to Bill Gammage's book. Clearly he thinks that there is a problem with acceptance of his ideas, that they are too far outside current frames for easy acceptance. Why else devote an entire appendix to a self-defence? For my part, I found them self-evident, if very stimulating.

During the week, former Australian PM John Howard re-ignited what has been called the Australian history wars with his attacks on the national history curriculum. Frustratingly, I found the text of the speech twice, but didn't bookmark it. Now I cannot find it again! Maybe one of my readers can!

The speech upset Neil, one of my long standing blogging friends. Looking at the language in the speech, I can see why. What I had intended to do with the speech was to strip out all the rhetoric and look at the assertions made. I fear that I cannot do this without the speech. I can say that I find the national history curriculum bitsy and selective.  But there are two very different problems here.

As I said earlier, by its very nature, the writing of history is always personal and political. The people and committees that developed the national curriculum selected the topics that they considered to be important. I may disagree, but that is their view. This problem can actually be addressed through debate, something that Mr Howard was trying to do in his own polemical way.

For example, the history of Aboriginal Australia breaks into two parts. The first part is the very long history of Aboriginal occupation of the continent up to 1788. The second is Aboriginal history in the two hundred years since. From my reading of the curriculum, by the end of year 10 you are likely to know very little about the first and have only a very partial view of the second. If I'm right, I think that is a failing. But these issues are actually debatable, testable.

There is a second, more complicated, problem. Many people naively think that the purpose of the Australian history curriculum is to give people a knowledge of Australian history. The reality is a little different. If you look at the curriculum, you will see that it breaks into two parts, knowledge and skills. Knowledge, the part that Mr Howard attacks for its perceived selectivity, is actually secondary to the skills component, the things that the student is meant to be able to do. It would. in fact, be quite possible to complete the course with only a very partial knowledge of Australian history, but to end it with very specific historiographical skills.

When I first did history at school, the focus was on knowledge. I learned to write to a degree, I learned certain skills associated with critical thinking, but history method as such was something I covered at university.

In his speech, Mr Howard referred to the fact that he answered two questions in the old Leaving Certificate on Asian history. His point was in part that the "Asian focus" wasn't new. In fact, I think that he is right here. The history I did at school in the old Leaving Certificate days was broader and deeper than that provided by the current curriculum. But then, I was learning history, not the writing of history.

There are further problems with the curriculum beyond those that I have referred to already. One is the sheer time scale covered however partially, from go to woe so to speak. This combines with the emphasis on concepts and methods that I have referred to already. To illustrate the difficulty, let me quote from the year 7 curriculum where students study the ancient world:    

The Ancient World

The Year 7 curriculum provides a study of history from the time of the earliest human communities to the end of the ancient period, approximately 60 000 BC (BCE) – c.650 AD (CE). It was a period defined by the development of cultural practices and organised societies. The study of the ancient world includes the discoveries (the remains of the past and what we know) and the mysteries (what we do not know) about this period of history, in a range of societies including Australia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, China and India.

The content provides opportunities to develop historical understanding through key concepts, including evidence, continuity and change, cause and effect, perspectives, empathy, significance and contestability. These concepts may be investigated within a particular historical context to facilitate an understanding of the past and to provide a focus for historical inquiries.

The history content at this year level involves two strands: Historical Knowledge and Understanding and Historical Skills. These strands are interrelated and should be taught in an integrated way; and in ways that are appropriate to specific local contexts. The order and detail in which they are taught are programming decisions.

A framework for developing students’ historical knowledge, understanding and skills is provided by inquiry questions through the use and interpretation of sources. The key inquiry questions at this year level are:

Key inquiry questions

1. How do we know about the ancient past?
2. Why and where did the earliest societies develop?
3. What emerged as the defining characteristics of ancient societies?
4. What have been the legacies of ancient societies?

In this mix, teachers are expected to provide an overview of the whole period, but this should constitute no more than 10 per cent of total time. Crikey!

The method focus comes through even more clearly in the year 7 Achievement Standard. Again I quote:  

By the end of Year 7, students suggest reasons for change and continuity over time. They describe the effects of change on societies, individuals and groups. They describe events and developments from the perspective of different people who lived at the time. Students explain the role of groups and the significance of particular individuals in society. They identify past events and developments that have been interpreted in different ways.

Students sequence events and developments within a chronological framework, using dating conventions to represent and measure time. When researching, students develop questions to frame an historical inquiry. They identify and select a range of sources and locate, compare and use information to answer inquiry questions. They examine sources to explain points of view. When interpreting sources, they identify their origin and purpose. Students develop texts, particularly descriptions and explanations. In developing these texts and organising and presenting their findings, they use historical terms and concepts, incorporate relevant sources, and acknowledge their sources of information.

  Once again, crikey! Yes, I could define a teaching program that achieves these outcome within the bounds set by the topic choices as specified. But I very much doubt that I could give my students any deep knowledge of the pattern of history over the period. But then, that''s not required. There is no requirement to actually have any knowledge of the history of the period in question, just slices within it sufficient to demonstrate understanding of the learning outcomes as specified.

Now whatever My Howard's weaknesses and biases may be, I think that he believes as I do that some knowledge of history should be an integral element in any broad education. He is also concerned, as I am, at the apparent decline in historical  knowledge among modern Australians. However, to my mind, his focus on historical topics misses the point. Instead of history being the centre of the curriculum with method second, method is central to the curriculum with history second. Therein lies the real problem.

Train Reading - environment, mental maps & Bill Gammage

I finished my introduction to Bill Gammage's The Biggest Estate on Earth (Train Reading - introducing Gammage's The Biggest Estate on Earth, 11 September) with these words: "It's a fascinating book." I have now read it twice, and that remains my conclusion.

Just a reminder that the book examines the Aboriginal impact on the Australian landscape. The central thesis is that over the millennia the Aborigines modified the landscape to suit their needs. The book examines how they did it, as well as what happened when they stopped. The book has been somewhat controversial because it poses a fundamental challenge to some streams in the environmental movement by suggesting that their attempts to preserve the Australian environment are actually changing the environment, creating a new environment. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing is a different issue. Gammage's work simply challenges the premises built into many environmental campaigns.

One mark of a good book is the extent to which it causes the reader to stop and think. For that book and this reader, The Biggest Estate passes the test with flying colours. I found myself stopping to gaze out the train window and just think, testing what he wrote against my own knowledge. I also found myself digging around to find my ancient honours thesis on the economic structure of traditional Aboriginal life in Northern New South Wales. There I addressed some of the issues that Gammage would raise all those years later.

My honours class was the first at any Australian university to study Australian prehistory.

Isabel McBryde came to the University of New England in 1960 as a lecturer in classics and prehistory. Our knowledge of the human history of the Australian continent prior to 1788 was then very limited. Isabel believed that we needed detailed regional studies to provide the building blocks necessary for the development of a national picture. This view fitted with the the then ethos of UNE as a university with a regional focus, while also being part of an international community of teaching and scholarship.

One of Isabel's problems was the absence of any ethnohistorical studies of the North. As Isabel put it, New England's proto-history was tragically short because of the speed of collapse of traditional Aboriginal life. The writing that did exist describing traditional Aboriginal life was very fragmented. Despite this, Isabel believed that we could gain enormously from the material that was there, and therefore recruited students to help her. I was one such student.

I have run this photo before, but it shows me (right) with History Department tutor Mick Moore on a survey mission. It's a very New England scene and one that brings back to me the sheer excitement in what we did.

My thesis with its attempt to apply structures drawn from economics to traditional Aboriginal life was not especially well received. I looked at capital formation, at economic specialisation, at the distribution of population, at Aboriginal farming, at trade and exchange, at the Aboriginal impact on the environment. Re-reading, I take some pride in it's clarity. I think that I did pick issues that would become important later. And yet!

Memory is an imperfect beast. Thinking about my perceptions of the evolution of my own thought, I realised that  I had not quite said the things that I thought I said. I knew the source material, and as people wrote later I interpreted their views against that material, not against the things that I had written. In doing so, I assumed that I had said things when in fact I had not. The environment is a case in point.

Part of the thesis centred on what was then called man-land interaction. I recognised the importance of the environment,  but explicitly rejected the determinist idea that Aboriginal society was based just on the local environment and that, consequently, culture and society must vary as the environment changed. I recognised, too, that the Aborigines changed their environment, but I really didn't recognise the scale of the change when activities are thought of in terms of millennia.

Later I will look at some of the conclusions or assumptions in the thesis, for it's actually an interesting case study of thought frozen in a past time when so many current fields of Aboriginal study did not exist. For the moment, though, it was the environmental aspects that fascinated me.

As I gazed out the train window looking at the familiar scenes, my mind went back to 1788. Knowing the country as I do, knowing a little of the evidence and of the change processes that have taken place since 1788, how did I apply Bill's arguments to the area that I am writing about? The big paradigm shift lay in the rejection of the idea that the regional environment as I knew it was necessarily representative of past environments.

I knew that Aboriginal land management was far more active than was normally allowed. But how does one assess that and its impact when measured in thousands of years?    

Test - Netgear technical support is great!

I am having very real connection problem just at present to the point that I struggle to do anything at all on-line. I put the computer on wireless and moved it to the front room That has weakened the signal, cutting the nominal bandwidth from 100 to 54 Mbps per second. I say nominal because the real speeds were always a lot less. However, it may also be that I have just run out of my download allowance.

I am trying to run a test to see actual speeds, although downloading the test connection is proving difficult. It has been downloading for ten minutes!

While I'm waiting, the practical effect is that I simply can't post properly. I don't want to return the computer to the previous configuration, I really want to work in the front office. If I'm right about the choke but still have some upload capacity, the wireless connection status shows that  70,000 data packets have gone out in the last four hours as compared to just 19,000 in, then I may be able to work round the problem to some degree.

This post is a practical test. If I'm right it should upload. The speedtest download has just failed again. Signing off to post.

Postscript

Well, it did upload. It was slower, but within acceptable limits. However, the blog front page itself did not load properly. I am going to focus over the rest of the month on preparing material that I can then post, so actual posting will be limited until I sort this one out.

Postscript two

The amended heading says it all, but I will do a proper thank you post. I may not have solved the problem entirely, but Netgear technical support is superb. 

Snippets - gangnam, a case of spurs, currency & bohemians

I am very short of time this morning, so just wanted to pick up a few snippets.

Have you watched PSY - Gangnam Style? Alternatively, is there anyone who hasn't! I mention it now because the kids were dancing it yesterday at youngest's birthday BBQ. Youngest was mortified that I knew about the craze before she mentioned it, and from the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) no less. I am not sure what surprised her more, that I should know or that the ABC should have caught up so quickly! If you haven't heard it, have a listen. It's quite catchy.

I have watched with sympathy the technical problems that struck our friends at skepticslawyer. You will be pleased to hear that they are back on line now. Back in my home country, Denis Wright has maintained his high writing standard. If you haven't already done so, take a look at  "Five Sentence Fiction" or Spurred on.

In this morning's Sydney Morning Herald, Ross Gittins has a useful piece on the stubborn rise of the Australian dollar. I mention this now because I want to come back to this topic.

I have now added Don Aitkin's Don Aitkin to my regular read list. I wasn't in fact aware until very recently that Don had his own blog. I think it's actually quite new, starting in July, so a lot of people probably aren't aware of it yet.

Finishing today's very brief post, for those interested in Australian history, ‘Dancing with Empty Pockets: Australia’s Bohemians’ by Tony Moore from the Resident Judge of Port Phillip is worth a read  because it brings out another thread in Australian history and culture, if with a very Sydney & Melbourne focus.

kvd and now LE's chairs revisited

Back on 6 August (An outbreak of gardening at Astrolabe Road) I reported on the start of my gardening endeavours. This led kvd to offer to supervise so long as I supplied the beer!

I reported on this in kvd's chair. There I accepted David's offer and put out a chair for him. Subsequently, Legal Eagle offered to assist if I supplied dry white!

Time has passed. This is the same bed with kvd and LE's chairs. Sadly, there is no alcohol. It's actually a bit early in the morning for that!

When I lived in Queanbeyan, friend Sue used to laugh at me when, scissors in hand, I went out to the back yard saying that I was going to harvest the water cress! But it's true. It is harvesting.

Last night I cooked roast pork. As part of the vegetables, I cooked silver beet from the garden. I love silver beet, but my daughters detest it. So it's been a while since I had it.   

Saturday Morning Musings - Westacott, public service reform, defence with a dash of writing

I really don't know what happened to this week. It just seemed to vanish! Then I thought about it and realised that I had just been very busy, leaving lots of stories untold, threads untied. So bear with me this morning if I just meander, picking up threads, pointing to things that I noticed but didn't respond too at the time.

During the week a friend lost her job as part of the Queensland Government's public service cuts. She held a "temporary" position. These are the first to go. Why did I put temporary in inverted commas? One of the side effects of past cuts and restructures is the presence of a very large number of people occupying temporary positions. Some were brought in from outside to fill gaps left by previous organisational changes. Others hold substantive positions, but haven't occupied them for years, constantly shifted around. I know of one case where a person has been acting in positions well above the nominal position held for five years.

The problem is that when you get cuts of the type we have seen in Victoria, Queensland and, to a somewhat lesser extent, NSW, a domino effect sets in. Fred or Freda is told that they must return to their substantive position because the agency no longer has the funds to employ them in their current role. That substantive position was long ago filled on a temporary basis. Now the person held against the substantive position has to move. They may exit stage left if they are a contractor or temporary employee. Alternatively, they may have to move back to their substantive position, thus triggering another set of moves. Replicate this process in the thousands, and you get a feel for what can happen.

I must say that I have been quite astonished at the degree of staffing instability that I have observed.

I know that I have written a lot about the need to change current approaches to public policy and administration or risk continued degradation in performance. I mention it now because Jennifer Westacott, the CEO of the Business Council of Australia, has mounted a stinging attack on current approaches, calling for reform. You will find some of the coverage here, here, here, here, here, here and here. I don't have time to respond properly today, but I have actually thought of Ms Westacott herself as part of the problem!

Changing direction, Belshaw's World returns to Express in new form simply records my pleasure at my return as a columnist in the Armidale Express. My first scene setting column will appear Monday. The need to write for a print environment under a weekly deadline created a different focus and discipline and also brought me a different audience and a different form of interaction.

Sometimes I wish that people would not say things!   US Defence analyst Edward Luttwak is a case in point. I quote from the start of John Garnaut's article:

AUSTRALIA has been quietly building a regional defence coalition to restrain China's increasingly ''aggressive'' and ''autistic'' international behaviour, an influential adviser to the Pentagon says.

Edward Luttwak bluntly contradicts Australian and US denials that they see China as a threat or want to contain its rise.

''Australians view themselves as facing a strategic threat,'' he writes in his coming book, The Rise of China v The Logic of Strategy.

I don't write regularly on trade, foreign or defence policy, but over time I have traced out the strategic challenges facing Australia and the nature of responses. My problem with Mr Luttwak is that he has taken one element, defence, and made that central, Of course China is a potential strategic threat to Australia, but it is not the only one. Further, Australia's evolving relationships with Asia are a complicated multi-faceted web requiring adroit management. It doesn't help us to have one part of that web blown up as the central strand.

My post Visit a bookshop week starts 22 October - spread the word has garnered some initial support. In a comment, Jody wrote: "I came here via Ramana. I'm a writer, and of course, I do love bookstores. But, mostly, I also just love BOOKS. I find the library as compelling as bookstores, and even as a writer hoping to make a little money, the library sales in the U.S. can be significant."

Earlier in September in Nicholas, Fisher Library & a sense of sadness, I recorded my reactions to Sydney' University's Fisher Library book clean out. Our reactions to these things are always personal. I have been trying to work out how to explain this in, to use modern jargon, not helicopter terms, but at the personal micro-level. I use the new technology all the time, I rely on it to do the things that I do. Increasingly, however, there are things that I can no longer do as a consequence of the impact of the technology. It is those things and the possible responses that I am focusing on.

It's a beautiful day here in Sydney. The lawnmower next door has just started up. I fear that I must leave you for more domestic activities.

Postscript

In a comment, Rod wrote:

2. regarding the disposal of old books - I recommend looking into the consolidation of several libraries into into the Dorothy Hill Library at UQ. During the process ironically vast amounts of irreplaceable material was destroyed... including the private library of Dorothy Hill herself that was donated to UQ when she died. The UQ library webpage uses the typical excuses and apologies: http://www.library.uq.edu.au/locations/dorothy-hill-engineering-and-sciences-library#collections

The link is worth looking at, for this appears to have been a fairly monumental stuff-up that led to the loss of irreplaceable material. Now, and at considerable expense, the Library is struggling to rebuild the destroyed collection.

I recognise the problems that libraries face in coping with a growing volume of publications and, at the same time, finding the funds to invest in the provision of new on-line services. Library capital costs used to be driven by costs of buildings plus cost of acquiring collections. Now you have to add in the cost of acquiring and then maintaining the new technology. All this makes culling of the physical collection inevitable.

I accept that. However, in the process, many libraries ignore a simple and most basic question: is the culled material available on-line? If not, the disposal or destruction means permanent loss.

The problem is most acute with what we might call niche material. This is rarely available on line and is also less used; the second is important for it is the less used material that is often the first to meet the culler's axe.

Libraries have multiple roles. At present, the role of custodian of human thought is completely subservient to that of service provision to the immediate generation of users.

I see this all the time. The interests I have, the history of New England is an example, are niche interests. The key material that I use is rarely available on-line and, indeed, only partially available in the big libraries. That makes the preservation of the material that is there more important. The destruction that I recorded in Nicholas, Fisher Library & a sense of sadness is not just a personal loss, but a loss of another part of history. As I wrote at the time: "In throwing it out to clear space, Sydney University's Fisher Library took away another little piece of our own history. See why I'm sad? "

There isn't an answer. Were it not for the fact that I have been buying New England books for a long time and now have a collection of over four hundred, I could not write some of the things that I do. We may live in an information rich age, but it is also an age of information destruction. The people who make the decisions about what to keep and what to destroy have their own concerns. They have a job to do, targets to meet that focus on the greatest need as defined. The fact that they sometimes destroy the very things that I am most interested in is just collateral damage, an incidental result.  

Visit a bookshop week starts 22 October - spread the word

This is a bookshop, in Gunnedah.

Remember bookshops? They are places that sell printed books, things that you can buy and take away to read.

They are also places that you can visit when you are bored and want to pass the time. Standing there, you can browse the shelves, accessing a wide world of imagination and knowledge. You may not buy a book, but you at least pass the time and may emerge with new ideas.

Bookshops are dying. The big Westfield Eastgardens shopping centre is just down the road from my place. Millions of shoppers pass through its doors every year. Outside a very limited range at the ABC shop or the few mass publications carried by the chains, you cannot buy a book there. Its only bookshop closed in the commercial mess that flowed from Borders' commercial games. Think of it. Millions of customers and there is, apparently, insufficient demand for just one place selling books.

This is a bookshop, one of my favourites.  It is in Armidale. Armidale still has a number of bookshops. Maybe country people are just slower to adjust to change. Maybe, just maybe, they are more discerning.

Visiting Armidale last weekend, I did as I always do, I went book shopping. I was looking for books about New England or written by people from New England. There I purchased Yve Louis's latest book of poems, A door in the forest. The English is absolutely wonderful.

Yve Louis is one of Australia's best poets. Sydney born, she now lives in Armidale and is a member of the Armidale poets. Reader's Companion doesn't make any money out of her work. They carry her as a service, something bookshops used to do because she is now a local.

This is important. The economics of the net combined with the technical constraints associated with e-publishing work against small niche publishers and especially against poetry. The physical design of the poem on the printed page can be very important, and this is hard to reproduce in common electronic formats. You will only find some of this stuff at bookstores.

Call me a troglodyte if you like. Say that I am old fashioned and that, like the dinosaur, I am bound to go extinct. But I do think that we need to draw the line if we can. 

I am declaring the week starting Monday 22 October Visit a Bookstore Week. In that week I want you to visit bookstores near you and browse, talk to the staff, and buy a book. That's nearly all I ask. I say nearly all because I want my on-line colleagues to something additional.

Will you join with me in promoting the idea? Will you spread it? Can we make this a worthwhile? 

Please join with me. Promote it in every way you can. 

Postscript

Both Ramana and Neil and have already put up companion posts. Neil notes that Dymocks are opening again in Wollongong. For his part, Rod wrote:

I remember the Readers Companion in Armidale, wonderful books... it sells such a variety - not just the standard boring mass published ones. There is a few places in New England where an independant book store still graces the streets: Armidale, Gunnedah and Inverell spring to mind. Alas, there are no independants where I live and there is only one chain store. 

Rod is right. Peter Langston is another Australian poet carried by Reader's Companion. My enthusiasm is not shared by all. In a comment on Ramana's post, Cheerful Monk wrote: "I’ll pass. I’m hooked on Amazon, both real books and e-books. I also buy a lot of non-books from them–they have a great business model. That’s hard for brick-and-mortar stores, but great for those of us who live in the boondocks."

Tsk!

Curious cows Walcha-Nowendoc Road

Sunday 16 September 2012. On my way back to Sydney I stopped early morning to stretch my legs. It was warm and bright, the air still.

I stood looking back up the road - the southern end of the New England Tablelands is little known but very pretty. Turning round, I found that I had attracted interest from a group of curious cows.

I stood there and watched. As I did, the herd began to move towards me. They had obviously been attracted by the sound of the car stopping. Hand fed stock learn to associate motor vehicle noises with food. The countryside was reasonably lush, but the effect still held.

Getting out my camera, I moved to the front of the car and down the fence a little to see if I could get a decent photo. As I did, the herd moved with me. I watched them, they watched me.

I couldn't stay long. Getting back in the car, I drove on. It had been a curiously satisfying experience. 

Old boys, young boys & a bright, sunny day - TAS OBU weekend September 2012

I drove to Armidale Friday for an Old Boys' reunion at TAS (The Armidale School). I took my camera and took a lot of photos; a few were okay, although I had difficulty balancing light on a very bright day. This is a photo from the rugby. Downlands College from Toowoomba (red stripe) were visiting as part of the weekend. 

As you might expect, I cam back with many possible stories, some of which I may even write up! This next photo taken in Big School is a shot of my group.  People had travelled from Hong Kong, Canada and the US for the reunion, as well as from different parts of Australia. Few people who go to school or university in Armidale stay there. Their subsequent journeys are part of the changing fabric of life in Australia and well beyond.

I suppose that it's inevitable now, but in both Armidale itself and among the TAS group I learned of deaths that I had not known. Australian writer Gwen Kelly, Jim Burling, Rennie Barnes. That added to my sense of refection; I will record some of that too.

All of us were struck by the changes in the school, changes that also reflect the changes in Australian society. The last photo is of the TAS Stage Band. The school has a very strong theatre tradition.

We sat in the sun, drank beer and talked, listening to the music and the more distant sounds of the cheers and war cries from the nearby sporting fields. I was glad I had come, even though getting away had been a bit of a battle. 

Train Reading - introducing Gammage's The Biggest Estate on Earth

This print by the convict artist Joseph Lycett shows a scene near Newcastle. It has that somewhat European feel of many early Australian painters.

Australian art historian Bernard Smith and others have argued that the early European settlers had to learn to see the light and the country, that initially they imposed European norms on the new land. I'm sure that's true to some degree. But what if they were right and modern Australian views of light and landscape wrong, a creation of the changes wrought since European settlement? What if current views of the Australian landscape, views that influence politics and drive the environmental movement, were just plain wrong?

I mention this now to introduce my current train reading, Bill Gammage's The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines made Australia.  It's a fascinating book.