The Minister of Defence acknowledges the parlous state of the Defence Forces. It’s been described as a “basket case” with a mass exodus of mid-ranked experienced leadership across all three services. The gap has been staunched in part by hiring experienced but overaged retired senior ranks on contract. Recent announcements speak of billions to be spent on new equipment. But there is nothing in this for the library services, whose staff are seen as being of little or no importance.

Today there is no library in Defence House in Bowen Street, Wellington. After the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake and the forced evacuation of New Zealand Defence Headquarters in Aitken Street, the books of the Central Defence Library were salvaged and stored in boxes at Trentham. When planning the occupation of the present New Zealand Defence Headquarters in Bowen Street, the then-chief of Defence Force, presumably with the concurrence of the professional heads of the three services, decided that there was no space and by inference no need for the Central Defence Library in the new Defence Headquarters building. 

The books remained in boxes until 2022 when the Central Defence Library was reopened in Trentham. This was not driven from any interest from Defence Headquarters but by the actions of some keen enthusiasts who wanted to see this unique and important collection back on the shelves. Its treatment since reflects Defence’s ongoing disinterest.

In 2016 the library had a staff of seven and was the heart of the Defence Library service. Today it has a single staff member. The other unfilled appointment has been disestablished. It limps along on minimal life support on limited hours: 10am until 2pm, Monday to Friday. It is a shadow of its former self; how could it be otherwise with two hands doing the work of 14? The heart at the centre of the Defence Library network is barely beating and the camp libraries dependent on it have withered and died.

Until 2016 Defence Library staff surveyed and purchased books for the camp libraries. They also distributed the impressive array of military and defence-related journals and magazines with a monthly circular listing new book acquisitions and identifying journal articles by subject and theme, which circulated throughout the Defence establishment. All this has stopped. Papakura, Linton and Burnham Camps now have no professional military libraries.

In 2016 the Central Defence Library had an unrivalled collection of books that encompassed the spectrum of defence studies. This is no longer the case. There is a Black Hole for the six years it was in storage, and that continues. Despite the current revolution that is taking place in the art of warfare, little of this is evident in the library.

 “If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you.”

Search the range of works that came out towards the end of the First World War centenary, the studies relating to the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, recent command and leadership studies, the impact of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, or the impact of drone warfare on all aspects of the tactics and operations and the gaps are obvious. The sole remaining librarian has no time to do the serials or the monthly circulars and finds it difficult enough in assessing acquisitions, then cataloguing and getting them onto the shelves. It has become a time capsule of a once great library and research centre, isolated and all but forgotten.

As a military historian with 22 years’ army service, I am deeply concerned at the current apathy displayed by the New Zealand Defence Forces in regard to its library services, its books and manuscript collections and indeed its approach to the study of war. In his autobiography Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead, retired US Marine Corps four-star General Jim Mattis writes, “If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you.”

Mattis’ forecast has come true in every sense with the findings of the sinking of HMNZS Manawanui, which speaks of a “series of human errors”, a “lack of training and experience”, “incorrect procedures and inadequate preparation”. Think back to Sir Andrew Russell’s dictum: defence has become a force which has lost its brightest and the best, commanded and staffed by overaged colonels and their equivalents, who have lost touch with the basics of their trade. Certainly, one not worth spending billions upon, not unless a leavening of professional librarians and archivists are thrown into the mix, and serious attention is paid to ongoing education and professional knowledge. But how likely is that?

The Defence Central Library is, or was until 2016, the only collection of its breadth and depth in New Zealand and one which underpinned my professional research both as an army officer and later as a military historian. It was mirrored by the branch libraries at the military camps and bases, particularly at Waiouru where important collections such as that of Major General Lindsey Inglis had been deposited in the camp library by his family.

Today all that has changed. There are no professional librarians in any of the camps except Trentham and the camp libraries where they exist are recreational libraries run by volunteers.

I do not know the situation with the RNZAF Museum Library and Archive at Wigram, nor the RNZN Naval Museum Library and Archive at Devonport, but have examined the remaining three libraries available to service personnel: the Trentham Camp Library which has absorbed the Defence Central Library; the Library of the New Zealand Defence College Command and Staff Course (NZDCCSC) which is also in Trentham; and the Kippenberger Military Archive and Research Library at the National Army Museum in Waiouru, so-named because the military books collection of Major General Sir Howard Kippenberger formed the initial core of the library.

Co-located in Trentham Camp is the New Zealand Defence College which runs the   Intermediate Command and Staff Course (NZDCCSC). This is the premier educational institute for the New Zealand Defence Force in preparing military and civilian personnel for intermediate command and staff appointments. 

Until this year the NZCSC Library had two full-time positions both of which were filled by professional librarians equally fully employed on the same tasks that I experienced and that today’s students and staff have grown to expect. But in July it was announced in the report of the Work Force Savings Scheme that both librarian positions are to be disestablished and replaced by a single half-time appointment.

If the proposed changes go ahead, then as of December 1, the New Zealand Defence Force’s two existing libraries (tasked with assisting the goal of “inspiring continual self-improvement in the pursuit of excellence in leadership”) will have a total staff of one full-time position and one half-time position. Reading and self-improvement through study is clearly not a Defence priority.

The situation is no better at the Officer Cadet School (OCS) in Waiouru, the 12-month commissioning course for officers in the New Zealand Army. Today the OCS’s only library resource is the Kippenberger Library and Archive at the National Army Museum. The officer cadets receive an introductory period to the library at the beginning of their course, but no further library periods are programmed during working hours for the rest of the year, and the library is not open outside working hours. Catch-22: the cadets are shown an invaluable research resource which is then barred to them.

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Stand in the foyer of Defence House in Wellington and read the list of Defence and Intelligence agencies housed within. It’s an impressive group, both defence, cabinet and intelligence-related staffs, but no library. One wonders where do they draw their readings from, and how many ever trek out to Trentham and visit the Defence Central Library?

I visited it one afternoon earlier in May. I had to book in advance to get through the security at the gate and make an appointment with the librarian. Until 2016 one could front up without warning when it was in Wellington, but no more. On this day I think I was one of the very few to visit, the padre dropped in, but he was giving a session in the syndicate rooms next door.

It seems that the decision to cut library and archive staff was directed from the top and not the individual choice of the departments responsible because the above three libraries respond to different masters. The single librarian at the Defence Central Library reports to the Director, Defence Shared Service Group (DSSG) information Services, which covers a wide range of Defence services but has no responsibility for training or education. The Chief People Officer has overall responsibility for the NZDCCSC Library, and the staffing of the National Army Museum comes under the Deputy Chief of Army.

It’s interesting to read the CV of the senior military and civilian staff agreeing with these decisions. All have degrees, all have been to staff college and in most cases to overseas higher command and staff courses and have an impressive range of post-graduate qualifications. I cannot imagine that all of this did not come without some intensive library time. 

I remember as a 23-year-old newly commissioned infantry lieutenant, after graduation from the Royal Military College Duntroon, when I first visiting the Defence Central Library when it was in the Freyberg Building in early 1970. On that day I met two senior officers, Brigadiers John Mawson and John “Blackie” Burns, who were browsing in the library. They introduced themselves and in conversation asked what I was reading. They were readers and they expected me to be a reader too. It was an example of leadership and the importance of ongoing professional development that stayed with me ever since.

 we used to joke that when one reached lieutenant colonel rank that it was frontal lobotomy time. 

Perhaps our most outstanding New Zealand military leader was Major-General Sir Andrew Russell, a sheep farmer and Territorial officer from the Hawkes Bay. He made his reputation as the commander of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade on Gallipoli and then raised and commanded the New Zealand Division on the Western Front for the duration of the war. A fascinating man, a hands-on farmer, fluent in French, reading Proust in the original and a keen amateur cellist, Russell had a standing order for military books at Hatchards the London booksellers and in the years before the war, schooled himself on the latest doctrine.

There is also the example of Lieutenant Colonel William George Malone of the Wellington Infantry Battalion, killed leading his men on Chunuk Bair on August 8. 1915. Malone, a Taranaki lawyer, farmer and Territorial soldier, built up an impressive library of books, and took critical volumes to war with him.

Extracts of his copy of Henderson’s The Science of War which he purchased in 1910 are on display in the Te Papa Tongarewa exhibition Gallipoli the Scale of Our War. Most pages have sentences underlined with pencil notes in the margins. Visit Malone’s recreated dugout in the exhibition and you will see a shelf of books, including Henderson, that travelled with him to war, and were later returned to the family. I suspect few professional soldiers in 1910 had studied Henderson and other military theorists to this degree. Malone demanded high professional standards from his officers, most of whom were Territorials like himself. It is no surprise that two of the three infantry Brigadiers in the New Zealand Division in November 1918 were Territorial officers who had served under Malone.

During my army years, we used to joke that when one reached lieutenant colonel rank that it was frontal lobotomy time. We looked at people who we had once admired, then go on to seemingly forget the importance of the small cogs who are the individuals who keep the machine going. Today the role of libraries and books in professional self-development is not seen as important or necessary.

Archivists as well as librarians fall into the same category in the eyes of those tasked with reducing public service numbers. Some weeks ago, my wife and I drove up to Waiouru on a Friday to attend the farewell afternoon team for Dolores Ho, the Archivist of the Kippenberger Library and Archives at the National Army Museum. Dolores has worked in the Museum for 31 years, first as the Librarian and then as Archivist. When she took over as Archivist the position had been vacant for two years, and there was a 15-year backlog of manuscript material to be catalogued; she believes that the present backlog is still at least two years. Now at the age of 75 she is retiring to Hamilton from a job and an institution she loves.

It is worth quoting from Dolores’ farewell speech. She said, “Life as the Archivist here is no plain sailing. I struggled with lack of resources to do my work. I struggled to do a five-person job. There is the constant high demand and expectation from both employer and the public. Some days it is so overwhelming that I wanted to just walk out. Instead, I would have a cry and get back on the horse again. One of the worst periods was the three years period prior to the World War One Centenary. Just about every local council, schools, large businesses, organisations, authors, film makers, government departments wanting to do something to commemorate the First World War. There were non-stop requests for primary sources and photographs… We had requests from overseas as well. To this day, I do not even know how I managed to cope but I did. Despite all the obstacles, I did not turn anyone down. I delivered an efficient service.”

As an author who made considerable demands on libraries and archives over the last 44 years, I can vouch for the sterling service delivered by Dolores and her colleagues in my research forays to Waiouru.

I was conscious that my wife and I were the only attendees present who were not staff members. The Museum Director was not there; there was no representation from the Camp staff or from the Trust Board of the Museum. So much for 31 years’ service.

And now there is a freeze on filling the Archivist position. At present that job, and the positions of e Registrar and the Textile Curator, are all vacant. The rumour is that the Trust Board and the Director have agreed that the role of Archivist and Registrar be combined into the one appointment. Anyone with any knowledge of how busy each of those positions are would know how unworkable this will be and that it is the Archivist’s duties that will suffer.

A fish rots from its head, and the current state of the Defence Library services reflects the lack of interest and understanding shown by the Chief of Defence Force and professional heads of the three services and those all the way down the command chain. In their busy world, knowledge does not seem important, and the librarians and archivists who give us access: the small but essential cogs in the machine don’t count and are expendable.