The following was written in 1994 when Eltham Library opened.
People who use the current library in the Shire Office building may think that the new Eltham Library is the first replacement library in Eltham. However this is not the case. The records show that children’s and adult’s books have been available in various forms of private and public libraries in Eltham extending back into the 1930’s. The new Eltham library will be a marvelous home for the replacement and widely expanded facilities for all ages.
In the Eltham township area, in the early 1930’s, library books for adults were available from E J Andrew’s newsagency in Main Road. In the newsagency cum haberdashery, some shelves were set aside for a lending library of adults’ books.
In 1935, Mr & Mrs J C Rains purchased the newsagency and continued the lending service until the late 1940’s. At this time the business was extended from haberdashery to sell ladies’ and men’s clothing. The library section was discontinued. The current newsagency still occupies the same Main Rd site. In the 1930’s a mobile book library was also run by a Mr Foster of Bible Street, Eltham.
in the 1950’s adult books were available from racks in the foyer of the Eltham Shire Offices which was then located beside the Eltham Hall on the corner of Arthur Street and Main Road.
In the early 1950’s a referendum of ratepayers was called to seek public opinion on the issue of raising money for a public library for which the rates would have to be increased – the motion was defeated!
On 11 November 1965 the Shire Council, in conjunction with the City of Heidelberg and the Shire of Diamond Valley, met to form the Heidelberg Regional Library Service. Eltham was represented by Councillors Charis Pelling and John Lewis. The first library service for the Shire of Eltham from this group came in the shape of a bookmobile van which had, amongst others, a central stopover near the pencil pine trees outside the current Shire Offices. Wingrove Park was another stopover and the many recorded requests for this service can be read as denoting the areas of population or gathering points at that period throughout the Shire.
1966 saw the Shire convert the “Brinkkotter” house in Dudley Street to house both adult and children’s books. This library was originally staffed from the City of Heidelberg Library and records of committee meetings range from borrowing Heidelberg’s old library shelving to trying to increase the Government’s subsidy to a dollar for dollar basis. Book loans in the period 1996-67 totalled 30,400 and the following year ran to 52,113. With 2 books plus 1 paperback the limit per person, it must have become, as with our current library, overcrowded and unable to house the range of other services which had become common library stock. Planning to extend the Shire Offices by the addition of the south wing was an opportunity to re-house the Shire’s Library to its current location where it is over-crowded and unable to house the range of other services yet again.
The opening of the library in the extension was carried out on 17th August 1971 by the Hon R J Hamer ED, MP,the then Minster for Local Government. Cr Geoffrey Dreverman officiated as the Shire President. The brass plaque to commemorate the occasion is to be retrieved from behind the library shelves for yet another showing in the new library as an historical reminder to users.
The Heidelberg Regional Library Service continued until September 1985 when it disbanded. On 21 November 1985 the Yarra Plenty Regional Library Service was established. At that time Eltham was represented by Councillors Mary Grant and Robert Manuell.
Children’s Books
The inaugural meeting of a Women’s Auxiliary to the Eltham War Memorial Trust was held on 10 May 1946 in the Eltham Shire Hall. The auxiliary’s task was to support the projects planned by the War Memorial Trust. The Trust had proposed to raise funds to purchase land and erect a Baby Health Centre, Pre School and Children’s Library as a memorial to those who had fought in the war.
The Children’s Library Committee was established and, under the organisation of Mrs B Morrison, Mrs I Bow, Mrs Currie and others, the task of raising funds was undertaken.
They needed to purchase books and furniture along with borrowing cards and stationary for records. Children came to the stage area of the Shire Hall where the books were housed in lockable cupboards because other groups used the hall at other times.
With the opening of the Baby Health Centre in 1952 the books were transferred from the Hall to a room in the Centre, a temporary site for the Children’s Library until 1961.
In 1954, the War Memorial Trust’s Children’s Library Committee reported that they held 1,800 volumes for 500 borrowers with space for 80 children at a time in the Health Centre. They had plans to double the library space for children. The Children’s Library, which was established with funds from the War Memorial Trust, opened in November 1961 in the Children’s Library Hall which was built on to the Eltham Pre School on the Trust’s site in in Main Road.
To ensure that as many children as possible throughout the Shire had access to the Trust’s library books the committee established monthly boxes of books on an exchange basis which were taken to every Shire school by volunteers. (Yarra Glen and Dixon’s Creek schools were part of Eltham Shire in earlier days.)
During 1965 the Eltham War MemorialTrust transferred its land and buildings to the Shire of Eltham which, in turn, set up a Trust Committee of Management to handle the property on behalf of the Council for the ensuing year. The Trust’s Children’s Library was closed in late 1966 after 17 years service to the children of Eltham. The book stock was distributed to nine Shire schools and also to Community Aid Abroad. The furniture was given to the Elderly Citizens’ Club, the Pre School Centre and the Judge Book Memorial Village. The final chapter came when the nameplate “Children’s Library Hall” was altered to “The Eltham War Memorial Hall”.
The Recent Background to the New Library
At the Council meeting held on 1 June 1987, the Councillors supported a resolution which threatened to close the library on 30 September 1987.
Council’s frustration arose from yet another re-run of the annual State Government versus Council Library funding and records show first arose in Eltham Council in 1967 with the Government of the day.
After prolonged public anger and petitions the motion to close the library was recinded in August 1987.
Council, taking into account the community’s concern, set up a “Library Review Working Party” which a year later became the Library Occasional Committee with direct access to Council. This Committee investigated the workings of the 386 square metre library and found inadequate space for storage and display, lack of equipment, out-of-date furniture together with an increasing patronage which resulted in queues of borrowers becoming longer no matter when the library was open. Community consultation took the form of 1,000 questionnaires sent to users and non-users along with noticeboard reminders of what was planned. Council developed a strategy to set aside capital funds from 1988 on an annual basis so that preliminary planning and consultative expenses could be met and construction could be completed early 1997.
The Committee visited metropolitan libraries which were catering for a similar population as was projected for Eltham.
Australia-wide Federal Government funding grants under the Local Capital Works Program became available from October 1992 for community projects endorsed by local Councils. The Eltham Council submitted a proposal, based on library findings and requirements accumulated by the Library Occasional Committee, to the Federal Grants Committee to build a new Eltham Library. The Federal Grants Committee supported the funding request allowing commencement of the library project three years earlier than planned.
With finance finalised, the Council set up its Eltham Library Re-development Special Committee which was given the task of overseeing what could be the last major expansion of the Shire’s Library Service as Eltham’s population nears its projected maximum.
What has been a dream for many years is now reality – Welcome to the New Eltham Library.
Harry Gilham, Eltham District Historical Society, 1994.
