A Library that Never Was: The National Research Library of Economics, Finance and Banking

In 1932 the then Commonwealth National Librarian, Kenneth Binns, conceived the idea of a National Library of Economics, Finance and Commerce, which was to form a part of the Commonwealth National Library and was to be financed by a one-off grant from Australian banks. Nothing came of it, but the episode is of more than passing interest: it reminds us, first, that the so-called information explosion is not a post-1945 phenomenon, and second, that information is not intrinsically valuable but becomes such only when someone wants it.