This month I interviewed the outgoing Chair of the Library, Heritage and Cultural Collections Committee, Hon. Associate Professor Cate Storey, who has contributed an extraordinary twenty-six years of service as a Committee member.

What first attracted you to working with the Library Committee?

Dr Jim Lawrence (then on the Library Committee) contacted me, because he knew I was using the Library at that time for my Masters in History and Philosophy of Science. He thought the Committee should have a female member which would be their first. At that time, I was actually in great demand as 'the female' for committees! I found myself once on a committee for the report into the 'Neurological injuries in football' for the Commonwealth Government. The only reason I was invited to be on that Committee was that every government department committee had to have a female representative. I joined the Library and rapidly dropped the median age of the Committee!

Around the time you joined the Committee [March, 2000] the College was looking into selling the collection, or moving it onto another institution?

When I first started there wasn't very much happening. The Library committee had previously been very active with book displays at the Annual General Meeting. But the format of the AGM was changing as Speciality groups held their own annual scientific meetings. That may have been the reason Jim Lawrence wanted new faces on the Committee. It was an interesting committee when I first joined, it was very much an 'old boys club', and they met as if we were in the Australia Club! Everyone would fly in and be put up overnight in those pre-Zoom days. Another relatively new member of the Committee at that time was Bruce Storey We were not related but knew each other from our time at the Department of History of Philosophy and Science at the University of Sydney. Bruce was a real go-getter, and I think that's what was needed at the time.

What were the biggest frustrations that you experienced over your time?

Certainly, it was when they said that they were going to sell off the Library. It came through from the Board that the library would 'have to go'. The librarian on behalf of the committee approached the State Library and the universities in Sydney but none of them would take the collection in its entirety. They wanted to cherry-pick the items that they didn't already have in their collections. If memory serves me correctly, I think one of the universities was willing to take most of the collection but only with on-going financial assistance from the College. This seemed a bit silly if we were paying to have on ongoing collection we may as well pay for it to be here [at the College]. Having rejected that, we then had to work out a way of rationalising the collection. The Library started selling off duplicate titles via the Fellowship Affairs journal. There was a massive cleanout of the archives through the cull of any photocopied or duplicated material. There had been a previous acquisition policy of collecting all books and publications of Fellows regardless of subject. Some of the Sydney members of the Library Committee found themselves on site over many weekends culling a massive amount of stuff.

Another major frustration was the inability of Fellows to access the then-very-outdated catalogue of the RACP collections. Fellows and the general public now have access to a very complete catalogue of the entire collection. The turning point for the Library was the setting up of the Cultural Assets Working Party [CAWP] in 2016. This came about as a result of the RACP inability to sell the collection. This Working Party was very important. It allowed those of us who had been frustrated, like Mark [Ferson] and I, about the lack of progress in the Library, to see a way forward. It allowed us to say what we thought was really required and to be listened to. The Library Committee of the time was dissolved, which had quite a few repercussions. However, it drew a line in the sand that empowered the Working Party. Its members had a clear vision for the future and understood that the only way forward was to have the Library properly assessed, accurately catalogued, and appropriately housed.

"Much to our surprise this actually was taken on board, and this was definitely the point in which the Library turned around".

The last few years you have been Chair of what is now known as the Library, Heritage and Cultural Collections Committee [LHCCC], what have been the challenges of that position?

Getting the administration interested in this great facility! It has always saddened me that we have this extraordinary resource and very few 'at the top' have seen it. A couple of the past Presidents have even said to me that they have never been to the Library during their tenure - admittedly the Library never looked quite as organised as it does now - but they would have seen a small part of the Library in the Council Room during Board meetings - perhaps they thought that was the extent of it. That was always my greatest challenge. Certainly, the two most recent Presidents have been very supportive. We have done online videos and other profile-raising activities with their involvement and support.

What is it about the collection that kept you interested and committed?

I've always thought it is a phenomenal collection. I think that the thing about it is that it not only has books that one would expect but I'm sitting here and I'm looking at the Edward Ford Australiana collection, and these are resources that are just unique. Edward Ford had a terrific knack of recognising what was going to be historically significant in the future. And I think that is the value of this collection. It contains a lot of material that is just not found elsewhere.

What has been the most rewarding parts of the position?

Certainly, some of the events we have put on in relation to the collections such as when we received the E. Graeme Robertson collection and the Neurologists gathered to inspect our neurological treasures. Sydney Open has also been a valuable exercise. I first realised how important that was when I bought my own son as a schoolboy who was quite fascinated with the building. Just seeing how the general public reacts to being allowed 'behind these doors' as well, they find it quite extraordinary and a great privilege to have the opportunity to visit.

I think it’s a great idea to encourage our trainees to use the Library. All the medical students I have supervised over the last twenty years have always got a lot out of researching the history of medicine. It's a different way of researching. We [medical doctors] are taught scientific research but one of my students - co-author on a paper of the history of the teaching of surgery at University of Sydney - found that the methods that he learnt were invaluable and it gave him a greater appreciation of medical humanities research. I think that these students get a lot out of it and realise how medical practice has evolved - I've never supervised anybody who has said that it was a complete waste of time and didn't get anything out of it. It is great to see some of young trainees embracing the RACP's extraordinary heritage collection.