The Last Chapter with Bill Macnaught
Bill Macnaught retired from his role as the National Librarian December 16th after nine years in the role. Helen Heath caught up with him to hear about his career highlights and plans for retirement.
Firstly, congratulations on your retirement! Are you looking forward to winding things down a bit?
I am. Next year, I will be the ripe old age of 70 and I do feel as though I’ve probably reached a point where I’m running out of steam and it’s time for somebody else to take over. Fair enough. You must have a few career highlights from the last nine years in the role? Definitely, I suppose one is coming back into this building after its major refurbishment. That was a programme of work that was well underway before I started but it was still at a stage where things could have gone badly and didn’t. We succeed in bringing it in on time and under budget. We achieved everything that we set out to achieve with the refurbishment and actually, even better standards of protection for the collections than we had anticipated at the outset. |
It was really good to be able to bring staff back into the building – because we had been scattered to the four corners of Wellington for several years – and, of course, opening up to the public. The building was originally opened back in the 1980s so it was getting a bit tired looking – not to mention the rain coming through the roof – the building needed a lot of money spent on it.
When I started, the auditorium was out of scope for the refurbishment within the $65M budget. I couldn’t believe we were going to reopen the building looking fabulous but with the auditorium stuck in the 1980s with worn-out seats that were far from comfortable. It felt a bit sad. In my first few weeks, I said that, if it was the last thing I did, I was going to get the auditorium refurbished as well. It turns out it wasn’t the last thing I did but there was a sense of satisfaction when we finally got that across the line. It took a bit of persuasion for my senior colleagues in the department to share the view that it was essential for a National Library to have an auditorium at all. But we got there.
It was partly the catalyst for setting up the Te Puna Foundation. The minister of the day said that he was happy to invest in moving what is now He Tohu into the building but he would prefer us to go out and fundraise for the auditorium. In those days we made it really hard for people to give us money through philanthropy so the creation of the foundation itself was a bit of a breakthrough.
Some of my colleagues thought it was almost immoral that we would be seeking charitable gifts and money for something that was government business but I made the point that every other National Library that I can think of has got some kind of fundraising vehicle. At the end of the day, it was not the foundation that paid for the auditorium revamp but we were able to demonstrate that we tried to raise funds and that most people considered building work should be paid for by the government. The foundation has grown over the last four years to the point that we have major programmes funded to support kids reading. You must feel very proud of Te Puna – it must be one of the jewels in your crown? |
It was a tricky piece of business in terms of departmental priorities. Also, as I said the evening we launched Te Puna – to do our business well, the National Library needs Government, community and business supporting us. Going back 100 years to the Alexander Turnbull Library – that was a philanthropic gift. Every year since we’ve been getting donations from New Zealanders of taonga to add to the collections of the Turnbull Library. So, it’s really a case of working out what is appropriate for the Government to fund and making it easier for any New Zealander who wants to support our work with philanthropy to donate. Then, getting business support, Air New Zealand has been happy to support the work of the National Library. I see it as enhancing the capacity of the library to do its business beyond the funding that we can expect the taxpayer to give us during difficult times. Even with all the pressures of COVID, Air NZ are still keen to maintain the partnership with NLNZ and associate their brand with us.
One of the things that have been the least satisfying in the last nine years is that the visibility of the National Library has dipped below the radar. Some of that is about coming in under the bigger department that is Internal Affairs, some of it is due to the global financial crisis and not having much money for anything except keeping the lights on and wheels turning.
What do you think is the most challenging issue that you’ve had to deal with in the past nine years? The financial pressure has been fairly relentless from day two in the job. Day one was great, I had a powhiri. Then on day two, it was explained to me just how tight the financial situation was going to be within a matter of weeks. We were under significant financial pressure, as were many other government departments, but it has been quite challenging to keep things going. When you are trying to do new things and there is no money, the obvious question is what are you going to stop doing so you can start doing the new things. |
With the major shift from the analogue way of working lots of people want us to be doing fancy things in a digital world (including me – I would love us to be doing much more in that digital space) but a lot of our stakeholders also want us to keep going with the things that we have been doing for 100 years. So, it has been challenging to say we are going to stop doing some things in order to start doing others.
Is there anything in particular that you’d like to see happen in the digital realm?
One of the things that we are working on is being more joined up in the way we collect digital content. We’ve got a number of teams who have an interest in digital collecting or creating digital content. We still don’t have the optimum end-to-end process for collecting digital content, storing it, making it accessible and preserving it for future generations. It has become abundantly clear that the cost of our digital storage is on an exponential curve. There is a little bit of disconnect between those who are doing the collecting and those who are figuring out how to pay for the storage. Nevermind the preservation costs of it. When you look across the whole of the country, there is so much more that we need to be doing around digital preservation. We have libraries big and small nationwide, plus museums and archives – all sorts of other cultural agencies – collecting digital stuff and possibly thinking they are going to hold onto it forever without really understanding the challenges of preservation within the digital space. We’ve got the expertise but we cannot afford to be taking all the digital content that’s being collected and storing that in some massive digital repository at the taxpayers’ expense. So, that’s something that my successor will be faced with – that ongoing challenge of figuring out how we can provide some leadership in that space around digital preservation. Without taking on the full responsibility for preserving all the digital content that people might want us to help with. |
That leads on well to my next question – do you have any words of advice for your successor?
The cardinal rule that I learned a long time ago is that you must not overspend your budget, that’s rule number one. The challenge is to keep doing what we’ve always done while moving the library into the digital environment. Access to content is an area where we can seriously shift the power of the content that we’ve got in our collections – if we make it available on a digital platform rather than expecting people to come to Wellington. Especially when you see how things have shifted with COVID. There’s a huge opportunity for us but the big challenge will be constructing a powerful argument for at least some transition funding to digitise a lot of the content that is still held here in Wellington.
The cardinal rule that I learned a long time ago is that you must not overspend your budget, that’s rule number one. The challenge is to keep doing what we’ve always done while moving the library into the digital environment. Access to content is an area where we can seriously shift the power of the content that we’ve got in our collections – if we make it available on a digital platform rather than expecting people to come to Wellington. Especially when you see how things have shifted with COVID. There’s a huge opportunity for us but the big challenge will be constructing a powerful argument for at least some transition funding to digitise a lot of the content that is still held here in Wellington.
If you can’t get to Wellington that content is not much use to you. We’ve got such treasure locked up in our collections here. When I say locked up, it’s accessible if you can beat a path to our door but for so many New Zealanders, that is not something that they would see as realistic. If you think of the school kids that probably have never left their hometown, let alone coming to Wellington at the drop of a hat to study our collections. With the introduction of New Zealand history into the curriculum, in just over a year, we will be expecting schools up and down the country having much richer content available to students and teachers to use in the classroom. That’s something that we need to continue to work on with the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Culture and Heritage and with others in the sector, such as Te Papa and Nga Taonga Sound and Vision.
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There’s heaps of potential there. Over the last few years, our collaborations have strengthened with Nga Taonga coming into our building and working more closely with us. We’ve built our relationship with Archives to the point where it’s stronger than it's ever been. Courtney Johnston, the Chief Executive at Te Papa, has strong National Library ties. I know that there is a platform for collaboration, a willingness to work together for the right outcomes for New Zealand, particularly for schools. It really is an exciting time. The challenge will be finding the resources to do it properly. The Ministry of Education might be in the best position to help us with some of those challenges but there is so much change within the world of education at the moment that I’m not sure where we’d sit in the landscape of changing work.
On a slightly different note... I’m thinking about the IFLA World Library and Information Congress (WLIC), it must be a disappointment that you haven’t seen that happen while you’ve been here and it’s possible that it might not be here again for a long time. Are you hoping there may be some way for an alternative, such as a collaboration between New Zealand and Australia, that might see WLIC coming to the Southern hemisphere?
It’s possible that there might be something of a smaller scale and you can see that IFLA’s governing body is already thinking about new ways of running WLIC that don’t involve such a large carbon footprint every year. So, maybe something of a smaller scale but still a global nature – that would be really good to host here. Thinking back to the announcement that we were due to host WLIC in 2020 which, incidentally was a career highlight – standing on the stage with colleagues at the 2018 World Congress in Kuala Lumpur. The Prime Minister's face went up on the big screen and a gasp went across the room of 3,000 delegates. That was a seriously proud moment – to be part of the team effort to bring the congress to New Zealand. So, it was equally gutting that we had to face the reality that actually, despite our best efforts, it just wasn’t going to happen. |
What’s come out of that is the reputation that our library sector won through that work – it stands us in good stead to work more closely with IFLA at a regional level with support from IFLA HQ to build capacity in the library sector across Pacific Islands. That's something I know the Director-General of IFLA and the governing body are keen to see – more Pacific Islands developing sustainable library services. I’m pleased to say that the National Library, particularly Te Puna Foundation, has continued to pledge financial support, some of which will help continue that work with IFLA and other colleagues in Australia and elsewhere to support the building of the library sector in the Pacific Islands. Not in a colonial, patronising fashion, but building on the work of the Pacific Library Network started a couple of years ago – work that Alison Dobie, for example, was very actively involved in. It would be really good to see that continue for our colleagues in the Pacific Islands, who were looking forward to engaging with WLIC for the first time. They were looking forward to the opportunity to do some serious capacity building around the congress coming to the region. Although we haven’t got WLIC coming to the region, we can still be deliberate about investing in building the library profession.
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Maybe there is a silver lining to be found in the effects of COVID – in the openness to find different ways of doing things?
What aspect of your work do you hope people will remember you for?
To be quite honest, the nature of this work is that it is not about me. Looking back to my UK career – there’s a very visible reminder of my contribution in Gateshead, with the Angel of the North. I’m not sure there is anything as visible here. I was the instigator of what is now He Tohu but I don’t think many people will look at He Tohu and think of me. Apart from coming up with the idea and supporting it to happen, others were driving it. My boss, Peter Murray should take the most credit for driving that piece of work to a successful conclusion and he would be the first to say it was very much a team effort.
What aspect of your work do you hope people will remember you for?
To be quite honest, the nature of this work is that it is not about me. Looking back to my UK career – there’s a very visible reminder of my contribution in Gateshead, with the Angel of the North. I’m not sure there is anything as visible here. I was the instigator of what is now He Tohu but I don’t think many people will look at He Tohu and think of me. Apart from coming up with the idea and supporting it to happen, others were driving it. My boss, Peter Murray should take the most credit for driving that piece of work to a successful conclusion and he would be the first to say it was very much a team effort.
In terms of what I’ll be remembered for, probably not much. A lot of it feels like playing defence for nine years. In that respect, I know there were times when however bad it got it could have been much worse. I like to think that one of my contributions was holding things together through some challenging times. Nobody is going to notice that. I’m not looking for people to remember me in that way.
Probably the most obvious thing that happened in my work to benefit libraries is the COVID recovery programme. I can honestly say that was absolutely the result of our Minister’s commitment to supporting the library service – public libraries in particular. Essentially, I was handing her the ammunition and she was making sure that we got the results where it was needed.
Probably the most obvious thing that happened in my work to benefit libraries is the COVID recovery programme. I can honestly say that was absolutely the result of our Minister’s commitment to supporting the library service – public libraries in particular. Essentially, I was handing her the ammunition and she was making sure that we got the results where it was needed.
For a long time, I’ve understood the value of politicians and officials working well together. It’s about politicians being able to trust officials to get on with the job properly and it's about officials understanding that they are not politicians – leaving the politics to the politicians. Particularly in this job, it's really important that there's a good understanding of the space that the National Librarian occupies and the space that the Minister occupies and that you don’t blur the lines. It’s not about being “Pals” it’s about having a good working relationship where ideally you have mutual respect. That’s certainly what I experienced with Minister Martin’s COVID recovery funding for libraries. Obviously, she would trust that we go ahead and spend that money wisely. It was good to be able to bring some comfort to library managers at a time when many of them were really struggling with the prospect of severe budget cuts due to COVID. It’s not over yet. The money that we got through Budget 20 is not going to solve all problems but it’s something. There are some great stories already emerging about libraries up and down the country about what they’ve been able to do with the support we’ve given them so far.
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In terms of what I have championed, growing a nation of readers is important – it took a bit of persuading for some of my staff to accept it was worthy of being one of our three main strands of strategic directions, alongside taonga and knowledge. Given that we have so much knowledge locked up in the written word if you cannot read then you’re going to have to wait for somebody else to reformat it for you and give you their version of what the words actually say. It’s particularly true when you look across the fence at what our colleagues in archives are doing holding the public record so that citizens can hold the government to account. Again, how do you make use of that public record if you cannot read the written word – you’re going to depend on others to interpret it.
In a healthy democracy, if you want to know what the government is up to it helps if you can read. I know that some people might say that librarians tend to overclaim the benefit they deliver to society. But seriously, being able to read well is very important for a healthy democracy. That is something I have championed over the last few years. Having the Prime Minister here just a few months ago to announce the Reading Ambassador role – that was a career highlight. When she arrived she told me she’d been wanting it to happen for some time, so had we. We hope to name the Reading Ambassador in the first half of 2021, the call for nominations has just gone out. I’m seriously fascinated by who gets that first shot.
In a healthy democracy, if you want to know what the government is up to it helps if you can read. I know that some people might say that librarians tend to overclaim the benefit they deliver to society. But seriously, being able to read well is very important for a healthy democracy. That is something I have championed over the last few years. Having the Prime Minister here just a few months ago to announce the Reading Ambassador role – that was a career highlight. When she arrived she told me she’d been wanting it to happen for some time, so had we. We hope to name the Reading Ambassador in the first half of 2021, the call for nominations has just gone out. I’m seriously fascinated by who gets that first shot.
One last question – what are your retirement plans?
I’m looking forward to having a long break over summer. This year in particular has been a hard slog for most people. I have felt the responsibility of this job – looking after the wellbeing of roughly 300 staff – I have never felt that pressure quite as strongly as this year. I’ll be pleased to be able to retire without any serious mishaps to staff as a result of COVID or earthquakes. Being able to wake up in the morning without that weight of responsibility – I’m really looking forward to that.
I’m looking forward to having a long break over summer. This year in particular has been a hard slog for most people. I have felt the responsibility of this job – looking after the wellbeing of roughly 300 staff – I have never felt that pressure quite as strongly as this year. I’ll be pleased to be able to retire without any serious mishaps to staff as a result of COVID or earthquakes. Being able to wake up in the morning without that weight of responsibility – I’m really looking forward to that.
I have got a pet project, which will involve a trip back to the UK at some point, to do a bit of family history research around my grandfather and an episode in WWII where he was awarded an MBE. An episode not long after Dunkirk, where there were still some Scottish and allied troops stuck on a beach near Dieppe. My grandfather helped to rescue them – he took one of the last boats off the beach. He was in the Merchant Navy and, a bit like Dunkirk, 60 ships were commandeered to go over during the night to arrive in the early hours and start evacuating troops off the beach under cover of darkness. Which they did, until the fog lifted and suddenly the Germans could see there were ships in the bay and started lobbing shells at them, sinking a few. My grandfather was fortunate enough to get back home with his ship intact and got an MBE for it. Everybody has heard of Dunkirk, which was called Operation Dynamo. This exercise, which was three weeks later, was called Operation Cycle, which makes me think that (if they are going in alphabetical order) it was planned before Dunkirk.
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That sounds like a great research project, you’ll just have to wait for the borders to open!
It’s going to be interesting to see how much of it I can access digitally. Obviously, some of it will be in the war archives. The other part of it – the merchant shipping line that my grandfather sailed for all his career – is held by the University of Strathclyde as an archive. Well, it sounds like you won’t be sitting around doing nothing but I hope you get a chance to have a few sleep-ins and a potter in the garden. I’m actually looking forward to spending a bit more time in the kitchen. My wife and I have both had careers where we spent many years coming home fairly late in the evening, taking something out of the freezer and putting it in the microwave – go to bed, up in the morning and off you go again. So we haven’t had the healthiest of diets over the years. One of the things with coming to New Zealand was that we stopped that habit overnight and started eating fresh. So, the novelty of being able to invest more time in enjoying good food sounds great. On that note, we’d just like to say thank you and wish you the best of luck for the future! |