Sir Harold White: Australia's first national librarian

Peter Biskup

Abstract
Sir Harold White (1905-1992) was joint Commonwealth National Librarian and Commonwealth Parliamentary Librarian between 1947 and 1960, and National Librarian from 1960 until 1970. The only Australian librarian to receive a knighthood, he will be remembered for the unparalleled development of the National Library's collections and for the architecturally outstanding National Library building on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin. This paper looks at his remarkable political skills, his management style and his published works, and concludes with some observations about Harold White the man and about the consuming vision which guided his entire adult life.

This is an expanded version of a paper delivered at the Australian Communication Biographies Seminar/Workshop held at the University of Canberra on 20-21 February 1997.