An Interview with the Victorian Railways History Library

Recently, I had the privilege to sit down with Don from the Victorian Railways History Library (VRHL).

For years now, VRHL has shared the same building as the PMI Victorian History Library. The VRHL has a collection of books, journals and other material about trains and railways, with a focus on Victorian railways. In this interview, Don shared about what the volunteers at the library have been up to and his own personal interest in railways.

Introduce yourself and how long you have been working at the Victorian Railways History Library.

My name is Donald Barker, I’m a professional librarian and I’m the President of the Victorian Railway History Library. We have been established here since, well, since the [PMI Victorian History Library] was established here, but previously we were in the High Street premises for a number of years. So, all up, we have been at the library for 15 years at different locations.

How did you become President? When did you start working here?

This is a long story. The Australian Railway History Library was previously located at Windsor Railway Station. We were obliged to leave those premises and our library was placed in storage at the Newport Railway workshops. That’s about the time I got involved, and I sought to find a new home for our library and I was a member of the Prahran Mechanics Institute and still am, of course. The previous [PMI Victorian History Library] librarian, Tim, over at the High Street premises, and I agreed that we could use some space there for our library. So, we moved into the premises and then when they sold those premises we moved into these premises. Well, I basically took it upon myself the task of saving our library and when we moved into the premises on High Street, we advertised for volunteers and a number of volunteers appeared over time. Now we have a total of seven volunteers.

That sounds really good. Do you have any current projects you are working on? 

Yes, well, our library collection is catalogued in the previous PMI catalogue, but they have changed to Koha, which means we’ve got quite a lot of work to update. A lot of records did not come across properly. So, really, we’re running through our entire collection, updating entries. And Ian’s working on the Australian-Australasian collection and he’s working on the remainder; international, British books, American books.

So it sounds like your collection is very broad.

Well, its probably 40% Australian, 40% British and the rest is miscellaneous American material. But our primary interest is in Victoria, followed by Australian railway material and we have substantial journal collection as well. Milton coordinates our journal collection. We also receive a number of journals from other state railway associations.

So would you say that is the main purpose of the library? Is it to kind of retain that history and collect that kind of thing?

Our collection policy is to collect everything that relates to Victorian railway matters and other Australian railway material if we deem it important enough to add to our collection. We have a acquisition budget to maintain our collection.

 Are there any areas of your collection you want to expand on? Or even are there any areas, like internationally, you want to expand on or anything like that?

Not internationally, but I think we have quite a reasonable coverage of Victorian Railway Literature and also the Australian Railway literature. I think that covers pretty much every aspect of operations, but by no means is our collection complete. We are not like the State Library, in which collects every item but it’s a good representative collection in my view.

Why do you think the history of Victorian Railways is important? It’s a big question!

Well, the history of Victoria is entwined with railways. Victoria developed through railways. So, of course, the main development took place in the 19^th century and they just entered the 20^th century when a massive expanse of railways took place. When you have a railway, you have a town or a centre to serve the railway and of course it serves various areas for agriculture and pastural activities. It opens up those areas. So, history of Victorian railways is also the history of Victoria.

What about your own personal passion for Victorian railways? Did that start anywhere in particular?

I have been a railway fan for years, as have all our volunteers. That’s why they’re here. I didn’t really become interested because of my membership. The [Australian Railways Historical Society] had a museum and an archive and a library. Then, they suffered a demise about five years ago, so our library took over their activities. My interest in railways, it goes back to my membership of the Australian Railways Historical Society for many years. Back since 1973, I think I joined.

Wow, that’s a long time!

I’m showing my age now, aren’t I?

No! That dedication is very impressive!

And I’ve always enjoyed rail fan trips, steam train trips, that sort of thing. There has been an ongoing interest in railways and the library is part of that and I’m very proud that we’ve been able to preserve our library here.

I’ve got little fun question for you. As I am sure you are aware, Victoria’s rail network used to be much bigger than it is today. If you could bring back one of the old railway lines, which one would it be?

Well, I would like to bring back the Cudgewa line actually. It went from Wodonga to a place called Cudgewa. It was a very busy line back in the ‘60s because of the Snowy Mountains Scheme. They transferred all the building materials of the Snowy River Scheme along that railway. It has a station called Shelley, which was the highest railway station in Victoria. It quite often snowed up there. Yes, it’s a very interesting scenic track, which it’s a shame its had to close in the late, no, early 70s from everything. When the Snowy Mountain Scheme closed so did the railway.

So was that a passenger railway or just freight?

 

Freight. Years ago, they would have had a passenger car attached to a freight train. Which means it would have taken a very long time to get where you were going to. We do have a number of books on that particular railway.

I have got to the end of all of my questions. Do you have anything else you would like to say?

We do have a reasonable amount of interest in the library. It’s quite strange. You know, we have had some regular people that come and borrow books all the time and occasionally some people will just turn up with some particular interest and can help with them and we get a number of requests by our advertised email. Queries about a lot of different things like, “my great, great grandfather worked for railways in, you know, one hundred years ago, do you know what he did?” I’m like, sorry, we can’t help there! But quite often we can help people with a query.

 

That was my interview with Don, President of the Victorian Railways History Library. If you want to learn more about VRHL or how to get into contact with them, you can come to the PMI Victorian History Library on a Wednesday morning to speak with one of the volunteers. The VRHL’s collection is also available through the PMI Victorian History Library catalogue.

Interview conducted by Georgina, a volunteer at the PMI Victorian History Library.