ACER’s Cunningham Library celebrated the opening of the W.F. and M.L. Connell Collection on 28 May.

Formerly the private collection of Emeritus Professor William Connell and his wife, Margaret Connell, the collection of over 6000 items has been catalogued onto the Libraries Australia national database so that it is accessible to researchers Australia-wide.

The official opening of the collection was preceded with speeches by William and Margaret Connell’s children, Helen, Raewyn and Patricia, themselves esteemed academics in the fields of education, sociology and biology respectively.

Speaking to special guests in attendance, the launch Master of Ceremonies, ACER’s Dr Phillip McKenzie, said “The Cunningham Library catalogue contains about 100 works by various members of the Connell family, aside from those in the Connell Collection.”

ACER’s Head of Library and Information Services, Lance Deveson, said, “It was through the family’s desire that the Collection not be broken up that the Library was donated to ACER and the Cunningham Library.”

“My father had many links with ACER throughout his career so it’s fitting that the collection ended up here,” Helen Connell said. She described her father as a ‘magpie’ who assiduously kept copies of everything.

“I prepared the first catalogue of this collection aged 11 or 12 during the school holidays,” Helen Connell said, reflecting on the enormity of the task. “It’s good to know a thoroughly professional job has now been done.”

ACER Library Technician Christopher Foot, began the massive task of cataloguing the Collection in 2006. Four years later, The Cunningham Library now boasts this new collection that focuses on teaching and learning in their historical, comparative, socio-cultural, institutional, personal and interpersonal settings. In addition to its core focus on education, the collection also covers the key subject fields of sociology, history, psychology and psychometric testing within Australia and internationally.

ACER Indigenous Liaison Officer, Gina Milgate, said of her first browse through the collection, “As an Aboriginal woman from the Kamilaroi and Wiradjuri lands of New South Wales, I was empowered to see a book called The Education of the Australian Aborigine published in 1948.”

“It is quite fitting that we are launching this collection in Reconciliation week,’ Ms Milgate said. “I feel the spirits of the Wurundjeri people (the traditional owners of the land the Connell Collection now sits on) are keeping the resources protected in this special place.”

Also in attendance at the launch was former ACER librarian Chris Walker-Cook who worked with William Connell on the writing of the history of the first 50 years of ACER, The Australian Council for Educational Research 1930-1980, published in 1980 and available to view in the collection.

Prior to officially opening the Connell Collection, ACER CEO Professor Geoff Masters, spoke of the launch’s coincidence with ACER’s 80^th Anniversary year.

“This is a period in which we’ve been reflecting on the history of our organisation,” Masters said.

“William Connell has literally written our history and we reciprocate by providing a home to the collection.”

For more information on the W.F. and M.L. Connell Collection please contact ACER’s Cunningham Library on Ph.+61 3 9277 5553. To search the Connell Collection online please visit http://opac.acer.edu.au:8080/

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