2009 Harold White Fellows: 2008 saw the 25th year of Harold White Fellowships at the National Library of Australia, and the Fellows community now exceeds 110 scholars.

Ayres, Marie-Louise

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Fiona Wheeler--2009 Harold White Fellow

The Fellowship scheme continues to grow in prestige and reach. Our hard-working Fellowships Advisory Committee, chaired by Professor John Hay and including representatives from all the learned academies, the Australian Society of Authors, the Independent Scholars Association, and the Australian Library and Information Association considered a record 61 applications from around the world for its 2009 Fellowships, and awarded seven Fellowships to outstanding scholars.

The variety of the Fellows' topics reveals the breadth and depth of the Library's collections. In order of planned start date, the 2009 scholars are Professor Fiona Wheeler (High Court Judges and non-judicial functions); Dr Robert Cribb (state finance in the Indonesian revolution 1945-1949); Dr Tatiana Gabroussenko (North Korean propaganda from 1994 to the present); Professor Kenneth Morgan (the ABC Orchestras); Mr John Arnold (a history of Sun Books); Dr Philip Jones (winner of the 2008 Prime Minister's award for non-fiction: natural history painter George French Angas); and Professor David Carter (Australian-American cultural relations).

Fellows' and scholars' public talks during 2008 were a highlight of the Library's event calendar for many attendees. The lectures continue to attract consistently good audiences, and one lecture in 2008 was a standing room only affair.

Information about our various Fellowships and Scholarships is available on the Library's website at www.nla.gov.au/services/awards.html.

Marie-Louise Ayres

Curator of Manuscripts