Looking to the Future

The Carmelite Library faces the future with a well-focussed and coherent collection policy in areas of perennial significance which are also of great current interest in the Australian community. They are not covered in such depth elsewhere in the country. The Carmelitana collection is the most comprehensive in the region and among the few such collections in the world; in the area of spirituality and mysticism we have a nationally significant collection of periodicals and monographs; and the Library has the largest Australian holding in Mariology, including all the scholarly periodicals.

The Carmelites want to continue to build on what they have begun, and to carry into the future a resource which has already been long in the making. We are committed to making this treasure house of the “wisdom of the elders better known in Melbourne and beyond, and more accessible to interested users, as well as continuing its development according to a vision of excellence.

After 65 years at Donvale, the Library has found a new home in Middle Park, where the Carmelites have ministered since 1882. However, it requires further development if it is to realise its potential as a cultural, intellectual, and spiritual resource for the Australian community.

We need to offer extended opening hours for public access, and to take advantage of the new information technologies to provide connectivity with other institutes and an online public access catalogue. Our rare book and periodical collections are in need of proper housing. We need to provide improved access to the building and more comfortable and flexible facilities for users, including provision for related educational and cultural activities. We need also in the years ahead to develop an endowment fund which will ensure an independent future for a unique collection that has taken 120 years to create.

The Australian Carmelite Friars are convinced that there are exciting new possibilities for the Library to better realise its potential, as a resource both for scholarship and for the spiritual journey. We want to make this splendid resource more widely available to the community, whether to the scholar with a major research project or to the reader in search of spiritual enrichment. However, these developments are dependent on the provision of adequate funding.

We hope you will share our enthusiasm for this project.