The Munn-Pitt Survey of Australian Libraries

Carnegie Corporation funding to review the quality and status of Australia’s libraries resulted in the Munn-Pitt report of 1935, which described Australia’s libraries as “wretched little institutes” which were “cemeteries of old and forgotten books.” The report made headlines throughout the country and had an enormous impact on the people of Australia, which at the time had the fewest free public libraries of all English-speaking countries. A leading Australian historian and educator, Sir Archibald Grenfell Price, said that it led to a “revolution in Australian libraries,” which included a vigorous free library movement and, beginning in 1939, the passage of Library Acts by each Australian state that provided for the establishment of State Library Boards to promote excellent libraries and library services.  Today, there are approximately 550 public library and archive organizations operating through nearly 1,800 locations in Australia, and the country has nearly 7 million active registered borrowers—about one-third of the Australian population.