Giblin Economics and Commerce Library

History of the Giblin Library

Commerce was established at the University of Melbourne, with Douglas Berry Copland, formerly the Professor of Commerce in Tasmania, being appointed to the chair. This was followed in 1927 by the creation of the Ritchie Chair of Economics, a research chair established originally in the Faculty of Arts through the generosity of R.W.Ritchie of Penshurst in memory of his son Captain W.B.Ritchie killed in World War 1. The inaugural incumbent of this chair in 1930 was Professor Lyndhurst Falkiner Giblin.

Born in Hobart in 1872, Giblin studied at University College, London, and King's College, Cambridge. After coming down from Cambridge, this versatile man pursued a number of diverse activities, including prospecting for gold in North British Columbia, before settling once more in Hobart, where he involved himself in State politics, holding the seat of Denison for Labor. He fought in the First World War, receiving the Distinguished Service Order in 1918. He was appointed Tasmanian Government Statistician in 1919; in 1924 he helped to form the Economic Society of Australia and New Zealand.

Giblin took up the chair in Economics at the University of Melbourne in 1930 and held this chair until 1940 when he became chairman of the wartime Financial and Economic Committee. He won renown in the fields such as Federal finance, tariff policy, and employment analysis, among others. When he died in 1951, the library of the Faculty of Economics and Commerce was named in commemoration of him (and King's College, which had elected him t an honorary fellowship in 1938, established a studentship in his name).

The Faculty library was established in 1925, being at the time principally a collection of periodicals received in exchange for the Economic Record (produced by the Economic Society of Australia and New Zealand). It grew, initially, chiefly through donations by Professors Copland, Giblin and Wood, and other members of the Faculty. Valuable gifts included sets of statistical publications from the government statisticians of Victoria and New South Wales. In 1945 it became a library proper (as distinct from a collection of materials) and in 1951 acquired its present name.

In 1995 the library became a branch of the University of Melbourne Library and moved to its present location in the southern wing of the Economics and Commerce Building, adjoining the Baillieu Library. At that time its collections were merged with the economics and commerce component of the Baillieu Library.