This year I have been combing through the Institutes Association Journal which was issued three times a year from 1901 to May 1964. It included short reports from individual institutes, book recommendations, ideas from interstate institutes and libraries, information about popular authors and up-to-date information from the Association’s Council.
The reports from the Association’s Secretary, who visited each institute every two years, have been an invaluable source of detailed information. Just this week I discovered the Institute Association’s newsletter that replaced the journal in 1964. While the newsletter was also published three times a year it was much less comprehensive, reduced to between two and six pages long. It simply covered the latest administrative announcements such as ordering procedures, requirements for annual returns and essentials from the Council’s annual reports. The final issue was published in December 1984 when all the Institutes were closing to make way for free public libraries.
Wouldn’t it be fabulous if we could digitise the Institutes Association Journal and add it to Trove.