The Rare Book Collection includes about 500 pre-1800 titles, most of them with a Carmelite connection. The oldest book, a controversial work against Lutheranism by the Italian Carmelite Giovanni Maria Verrato, dates from 1538; we also hold the second edition of 1544.

Among items of special interest or importance are the 1748 Italian edition of the works of John of the Cross, with its sixty fine engravings, the most extensive iconographical cycle on this saint, and the 1635 Spanish edition of his works. We also hold the 1600 edition of the monumental commentary on the Psalms by the learned Italian Carmelite Michael Aiguani (d. 1400); the history of the Discalced Reform by its official historian Francísco de Santa Maria (1644); and the life of the blind Carmelite mystic John of Saint Samson by his confrère Donatien of Saint Nicholas (1651). There are especially fine holdings on the great Italian mystic, the ecstatic Carmelite nun Mary Magdalen de’ Pazzi (d. 1607), including several editions of her works and of the biography by her confessor and first editor, Vincenzo Puccini (1639, 1652, 1716, 1739, 1754).

We also have a copy of the famous “Breeches Bible” of 1610, ridiculed for its rendering of Genesis 3.7: “and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed figge tree leaves together and made themselves breeches”.

Among more recent rarities are a beautiful presentation copy of the popular prayer book The Key of Heaven, and a collection of anti-Nazi articles published by the Dutch Carmelite Amandus van der Weij from 1935 to 1937; because of these writings he was later interned in Buchenwald concentration camp, but he survived the war and died in 1988.

1. Profile of the Library

The Carmelite Library is the library of the Australia-Timor Leste Province of the Carmelite Friars. It is an affiliated library of Yarra Theological Union and member of the University of Divinity network.

The Library was first established with the arrival of the Carmelites in Australia from Ireland in 1881. From 1928 it was further developed in Albert Park in 1928, although the core holdings included books collected since the first Australian Carmelite foundation in 1881. It was originally intended to cater to the needs of the Order's novices, seminarians and teachers. It was relocated to Kew in 1928, to Donvale in 1937, and returned to Middle Park in 2002, where it is now housed in the Carmelite Hall, a heritage building (1918).

From 1990 a change in policy was adopted to meet the changing educational strategy of the Order, a desire to avoid duplication of resources, and a recognition that specialisation would allow the Library to become a more valuable intellectual, cultural, spiritual and ecclesiastical resource in Melbourne and beyond. The Carmelites decided to concentrate in those areas most closely associated with the life and spirit of the Order, and the Library is now specialised in three areas: Carmelitana, that is all aspects of the life, history and spiritual tradition of the Order; Christian spirituality and mysticism; and Mariology, the theological study of the Virgin Mary. The owners of the Library now regard it principally as a specialised research collection in these areas, made available to a broad public. It serves the needs of researchers, and in particular supports the research and teaching of the University of Divinity. In addition, the Library is open to the public as a spiritual resource, a place of welcome and reflection for anyone interested in the spiritual journey.

the Carmelites have formed a partnership with the University of Divinity for the management of the Library from October 2023 to December 2024. During this time the University team will work with the Carmelite Library Interim Board to collaboratively develop recommendations as to the most appropriate long-term structure for the library operation.

2. Relationship to Mission

The Library’s original principal function of supporting the Order’s work in undergraduate theological education is now shared with other libraries of the University of Divinity. The Library also continues to provide a general resource for members of the local Carmelite community and the Province.

The subject specialisations give expression to the Order’s spiritual tradition and its commitment to work in the area of spirituality and spiritual development. The Library participates in this mission by:

1. providing a comprehensive resource for the study of the history and spirituality of the Carmelite Order;
2. providing a high-level resource for research on the Christian spiritual and mystical tradition;
3. providing materials for research on the theology and cult of the Virgin Mary;
4. supporting research and teaching by Carmelite faculty and others; and
5. promoting opportunities for teaching, learning, study and conversation for people interested in the Library’s specialisations and the spiritual journey in general.

3. Purpose of the Collection Development Policy

The purposes of this collection development policy are:

1. to provide a formal statement of the collection development criteria and priorities currently in use;
2. to inform members of the Provincial Council and Provincial Chapter of the principles at work in the ongoing development of the collection;
3. to assist the work of the Library’s Advisory Board;
4. to guide library staff and others who may make decisions regarding selection and deselection of holdings, and to help ensure continuity of policy;
5. to identify the strengths and priorities of the collection for future development;
6. to indicate the character and scope of the collection to potential users and to other libraries collecting in related areas; and
7. to help create a broader public awareness of a specialised collection containing much monograph and periodical material unavailable elsewhere in Australia.

4. Clientele served

The Library offers broad public access to users and there are no restrictions on access. Users are diverse, but fall into two broad user groups.  The first includes researchers, postgraduates, teachers, and students of the University of Divinity and other schools and universities. The second includes all general readers for whom spiritual reading is a matter of personal interest and lifelong learning. This group includes the members of the Order, friends or associates of the Carmelite community, all users of the Carmelite Centre, and anyone engaged in spiritual life. The Library has a close on-going relationship with the Carmelite Centre, which provides programs facilitating spiritual journeys, study groups, meditation, spiritual direction, pastoral supervision, and workshops. The Library has its own educational and outreach programs. There are currently over 700 registered users.

5. Access to the Collection

In partnership with the Carmelites, the University of Divinity has allocated a team who will manage the Carmelite Library from October 2023 to December 2024 and work with the Carmelite Library Interim Board to develop recommendations as to the most appropriate long-term structure for the library’s operation. In order to allow time for the University team to prepare for this project, the Library will be closed to the public from 28 September 2023 to the end of January 2024. During this time you can still borrow and return Library resources. Please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to make arrangements. The catalogue is available online and via the Library website, also via the University of Divinity Combined Catalogue and the National Library of Australia’s Trove. Borrowing privileges are available to all members, 28 days renewable. Inter-library loan is available.

6. Description of the Collection

The Library holds over 55,000 monograph titles, 60 periodical titles, and is growing. In recent years it has generally added about 1000 titles each year.

The foundation of the collection consisted of the seminary and rare books retained after the downsizing of the 1990s. Spirituality is a broad-ranging interdisciplinary field, so there was retention of monograph material in those areas. Systematic acquisition since has been restricted almost exclusively to the Library’s areas of specialisation.

The Library concentrates on the acquisition of print materials (reference and folio works, monographs, periodicals, pamphlets), but also holds collections of CDs, DVDs, and artworks, including an icon collection.

Classification is modified Dewey, with important adaptations for Mariology, Spirituality, and Carmelitana. Books are catalogued according to RDA and other authorities by author, title, series and subject (LCSH). The catalogue is available direct online and via the website. It is also found via the University of Divinity Combined Online Catalogue and its holdings are on Libraries Australia. Shelving is open access. There is also an unclassified stack collection that is readily accessible by staff for requests.

 In summary, the Library has a well-focussed and coherent collection policy in areas which are not covered in such depth elsewhere in Australia:

1. the Carmelitana collection is the most significant in the region and one of the top half dozen in the world, including exceptional holdings on the major Carmelite mystical writers and all the relevant scholarly periodicals;
2. the specialisation area of Christian spirituality and mysticism is a nationally significant holding of monographs and periodicals;
3. the largest Melbourne holding in the specialisation area Mariology, if not Australia, including all the significant periodicals;
4. the Library's project “Bibliographical Heritage of Religious Institutes” is establishing a research collection of specialised and older materials relating to monastic and religious life in danger of loss or dispersal because of the closure of institutional libraries;
5. other strengths of the collection include holdings in related areas such as hagiography and lives of saints, Christian biography, prayer-books and devotions, retreats and meditations, history of women, popular religion, and spiritual and mystical traditions of the world religions.

The Carmelite Library’s choice for specialisation has enabled it to build a significant resource for research on a comparatively modest budget. In many sectors of its areas of specialisation, the holdings are sufficient for post-graduate work, research, and publication.

7. Budget

The budget allocation in recent years has been about $130,000, but there are currently severe financial restraints. A major renovation of the Library premises and precinct was carried out in 2006. Since the Library’s relocation to Middle Park in 2002 the Carmelites have invested an estimated $3.5 million in preserving ad developing the collection.

The Library is supported by the Province, with assistance from grants, monetary donations, and other outside funding. The highly successful policy of collecting materials by donation or second-hand purchase has resulted in a large number of titles entering the collection annually relative to the expenditure.

8. Selection Principles and Procedures

The librarian is responsible for selection of all materials. Literary merit, enduring value, continuing relevance, authoritativeness, rarity and availability of material on the subject, and budgetary constraints are principles that guide selection. Priority is in this order (1) Carmelitana, (2) Spirituality, and (3) Mariology. The principal criteria are the comprehensiveness and quality of the collection; user demand is a significant factor, but secondary. Acquisitions are made in the principal European languages of scholarship relevant to each subject area. Identification of spirituality subject gaps in the collection is the rationale for special funding applications. With donations, special consideration is also given to valuable materials not otherwise available within the University of Divinity. Selection procedures include review of online and print catalogues, subject bibliographies, book reviews, recommendations, and user requests.

The interdisciplinary character of spirituality as a field of research and teaching informs the maintenance of broad selection. Preservation of the coherence and usefulness of the specialised collection is paramount, with consideration of availability of related materials in other libraries. Preference is often given to material not held by, or thought unlikely to be purchased by, other libraries. Budgetary constraints impose restrictions on purchases, particularly expensive scholarly works.

9. Special Collections

The Carmelitana is a large special collection, housed in separate ranges of the Library. These are works by or about Carmelites, their history and traditions. This collection has its own in-house classification. The collection includes comprehensive multilingual holdings on the major Carmelite mystical authors (e.g. St John of the Cross, Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint Edith Stein), and all the scholarly periodicals and specialist indexes in the area.

A significant rare book collection of about 750 pre-1800 Carmelite titles includes important holdings of liturgical texts, biography, history, theology and mystical literature.

Mariology is a special collection incorporated into the General Collection. The Library also holds one of Melbourne’s strongest collections of icon books.

10. Limitations of the Collection    

The Library, as a rule, does not acquire theological material outside its areas of specialisation. The major limitation in the specialist areas is financial. Opening hours have had to be reduced for financial reasons.

11. Cooperative Relationships with other Libraries (including Inter-Library Loans)

The Carmelite Library is an associated library of Yarra Theological Union, one of the associated teaching institutions of the University of Divinity. The librarian participates in the cooperative work of the University’s Library Committee. The Library is a participating member of two international organisations, the Australian and New Zealand Theological Library Association and the Carmelite Librarians’ Association. An inter-library loan system is available.

The Library’s specialisation policy was decided independently based on criteria internal to the Carmelite Order, but there was a lively awareness that no other library in Australia was pursuing the same specialisations and that therefore a significant contribution could be made to the distributed theological collection in Melbourne and the national distributed collection in general.

Since the Carmelite Library is a specialised research collection and not a campus library or an undergraduate service collection, its holdings include a large proportion of titles not held by other libraries in the University of Divinity network. Our collection policy is likely to fit readily into future cooperative developments between theological libraries in Melbourne.

12. Collection Evaluation

Comprehensive reviews were undertaken by Dr Ken O’Malley of Chicago Theological Union in 1993, and as part of the Melbourne College of Divinity conspectus process in 1999, The most recent review was tabled by Jock Murphy and Shane Carmody of the State Library of Victoria in 2016. Their conclusion was that the Library is “both viable and valuable,” that the Library “has a future, should the province wish this to be so.”

13. Preservation Activity

Repairs are carried out as needed. The library is not air-conditioned or humidity-controlled but conditions are generally good.

A significant preservation concern relates to unbound periodicals. Little binding has been done over the years, and the majority of periodicals are unbound and with increased susceptibility to loss. This is of some concern, especially given the proportion of periodicals not readily available elsewhere. A limited binding program has been undertaken, but within present budgetary limitations the situation is unlikely to be rectified in the near future. Large parts of this collection are now stored in boxes in stack.

The significant Rare Book collection is inadequately housed and conserved. Application has been made for a Community Heritage Grant in order to carry out a significance assessment as a first step towards improved curation of this part of the collection.

14. Weeding

In accordance with the practice of research collections, deselection is not practised in the areas of specialisation, where older materials, variant editions, translations, and so on are retained. The Library has adopted the ‘steady state’ policy recommended by Murphy and Carmody, i.e. only very judicious weeding of material judged redundant, or else available with certainty in another library of the University of Divinity. The working collection is accessible on the shelves; low demand materials are kept in stack.

15. Review of the Collection Development Policy

The collection development policy is reviewed periodically, in consultation with the Advisory Board and the Carmelite Provincial Council.

Approved by the Carmelite Provincial Council, August 2021

Carmelitana

Analecta Ordinis Carmelitarum | Archivum Bibliographicum Carmelitanum | Bibliographia Carmelitana Annualis | Carmel | Carmel in the World | Carmelite Digest | Carmelus | Carmelo Lusitano | Études Carmélitaines | Horeb | Madonna del Carmine | Mélanges Carmélitaines | Monte Carmelo | Mount Carmel | Nubecula | Près de la Source | San Juan de la Cruz | Sicut Parvuli | Speling | Sword | Teresianum | Vie Thérèsienne | Vives Flammes.

Spirituality

American Benedictine Review | Bibliographia Internationalis Spiritualitatis | Buddhist-Christian Studies | Christian Spirituality Bulletin | Cistercian Studies Quarterly | Eckhart Review | Epiphany International | Hagiographica | Human Development | Merton Annual | Magistra | Mystics Quarterly | Ons geestelijk erf | Religious Life Review | Review for Religious | Revista de Espiritualidad | Revue d’Ascétique et de Mystique | Rivista di Ascetica e Mistica | Rivista di Vita Spirituale | Sources | Spiritual Life | Spirituality | Spiritus | Studia Mystica | Studies in Spirituality | Teología Espiritual | Tjurunga | Vies Consacrées | Vie Spirituelle | The Way | The Way Supplement.

Mariology

Bibliographia Mariana | Ephemerides Mariologicae | Estudios Marianos | Études Mariales | Maria | Marian Library Studies | Marianum | Theotokos.

Location

214 Richardson Street, Middle Park, Victoria 3206 Australia

Tel : (03) 9682 8553

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Opening hours

The Carmelites have formed a partnership with the University of Divinity for the management of the Library from October 2023 to December 2024. During this time the University team will work with the Carmelite Library Interim Board to collaboratively develop recommendations as to the most appropriate long-term structure for the library operation.

Open Tuesdays 10am - 3pm.

Getting to the Library

By car:
Melway ref. 2K C10. Street parking available (one-hour and unrestricted).

By tram:
Tram 96 to the MSAC (Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre) Wright Street stop and 300 metres south on Wright Street; or

Tram 12 to stop 135 (Middle Park Primary School) and 100 metres east on Richardson Street.

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. There is a committment to make 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 found a new home in Middle Park, where the Carmelites have ministered since 1882. It is in a constant state of creative evolution. The Carmelites are dedicated to making the Library realise its potential as a cultural, intellectual, and spiritual resource for the Australian community.

The Library is focussed on the exciting new possibilities to better realising 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.

To this end, the Carmelites have formed a partnership with the University of Divinity for the management of the Library from October 2023 to December 2024. During this time the University team will work with the Carmelite Library Interim Board to collaboratively develop recommendations as to the most appropriate long-term structure for the library operation.

• You can read more about these changes here.

We invite you to share our enthusiasm for the Library's future.

The Carmelite Library is an affiliated member of the University of Divinity (UD), Australia’s largest ecumenical degree-granting body in theology. It is a member library of the Yarra Theological Union.

The Library has full membership of the Australian and New Zealand Theological Library Association (ANZTLA) and is actively involved in the Association's conferences and projects.

The Carmelite Library works in close cooperation with the Carmelite Centre in Middle Park, supporting the programmes of the Centre. The Library offers an annual series of four Carmelite Library lectures, and is the venue for reading groups and seminars throughout the year.

The Library has close contacts with Carmelite research institutes and libraries around the world, especially the Institutum Carmelitanum in Rome, the Carmelitana Collection in Washington DC, the Titus Brandsma Instituut in Nijmegen, the Nederlands Carmelitaans Instituut in Boxmeer, and the Titus Brandsma Centre in Manila.

Management

From October 2023 to the end of January 2024 the Carmelite Library will be managed by a team from the University of Divinity. During this time the University team will work with the Carmelite Library Interim Board to collaboratively develop recommendations as to the most appropriate long-term structure for the library operation.

In order to allow time for the University team to prepare for this project, the Carmelite Library will be closed to the public from Thursday 28 September 2023 until the end of January 2024. Borrowing and returning books from the Carmelite Library collection during this period can be organised via the Mannix Library in East Melbourne. You can email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to make arrangements.

Arcimboldo -- The Librarian: Meditation

This meditation by Philip Harvey on the painting by Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1526 or 27-1593) was first published on the Library Blog in February 2013.

He stares into the past that made him. We are all doing this, increasingly as we grow older. We have to find a way to explain how we got here. Our experience slowly informs us that there was a time before our own experience, to which we also belong. He stares from 1562 at a lifetime of transformations. Water can be turned into wine but clay still cannot be turned into gold. Not everything pleases him, it can never be all pleasure, yet he knows he belongs to discovery and its consequent treasures. He is full of this discovery, it has made him, we could almost say. He stares across the Atlantic Ocean to what nature does that is different and equally abundant. Within him he contains that information, though he calls it Legend and Report and Assay and Proclamation and Statute. Certainly, nothing in his own constitution would be quite the same without discovery, or its companions, conquest and exploitation. From 1562 the past is a tumult that he would rather keep under wraps. Why, only in living memory England has closed its monasteries and Germany has freely set up its own church and friends of his remember their grandparents talk about the end of the East at Byzantium. The Emperor here in Prague is restless for knowledge too, permitting into his orbit every kind of theorist and experimenter, as if he were the centre of the universe. It is not altogether with a clear equanimity or composure that the Librarian knows these tumults are related to books. That it was books in increasing numbers that enhanced discovery of the differences in people’s minds. He keeps himself together, he doesn’t fall in a heap, has at least these things to keep him going. But authority has come at a cost. His identity must resolve contradictions between one page and the next, or at least live with those contradictions. 1562 stares at the past as at a dream of lost glories. The ruins of the ancients keep him on his mettle. For even though manuscripts are old hat and the scroll could belong in one of the Emperor’s cabinets of catchy curiosities, he must not become conceited. It would be dangerous to presume that you know it all; people like that often finish up being thrown out the window, especially in Prague, where it is a more effective solution than exile.

He belongs in the present and can do no other. We are all doing this, possibilities reach out to impossibility. Probability thrashes it out with improbability. His masters want to emulate the ancients, why the Emperor himself would be the King of May. It is a topsy-turvy world, for sure. The green mantle over his left shoulder is that of a Habsburg prince. He though is not a prince but a philosopher, grinding out the slow meal for a new recipe of life. The mantle is stylish, it sends the message. But like the rest of him, it belongs in the present where rust and moth destroy, where princes give with one hand and take with the other. He would copy the prince, he also values his status. In 1562, that can amount to an impressive library. Books made him and he is made of books. Splendid things every week come to his attention. How solid is the present. Or should that be a question? How solid is the present? Carefully bound books seem a sure assertion of his place. Those papers that are his fingers write the laws we belong with. It’s all impressive enough, but is there not something stiff in the manner? Is he too straight-up-and-down to be believable? And will we ever know what he really thinks? Is he, for all his show of knowledge, a closed book? Outside in the streets of Prague the market is orderly racket, a walkway of vivid bartering, somewhere for animals to huff and toy stars to explode. The Vltava is rowdy with geese and trading boats. Whereas in here the silence is closed in. And anyway it’s never like this the rest of the time. Only now has he collected himself together sufficiently to stand a chance with posterity. Most times he’s all over the place, Philosophy at the window over there, History where it happens beyond the stairs, Law when something very wrong happens, only how wrong? His Science side is waiting for updates, his Theology looks tight but will it stand the next test? Why, his whole being could collapse into the proverbial, or turn into a pile of tomes for re-shelving. So for the moment he keeps a straight face, combines an aura of knowledge with a figure resolute with a little brief authority.  

He stares into the future, that will be totally unfair to all his achievements. We are the future, for example, who do not know what he really wants to achieve and cannot imagine what a Librarian in 1562 might possibly be up to, and will not care a fig. Just as we care not a fig for the Emperor looking like a green grocer’s window, though we find him curious enough. In his coat of many covers, the Librarian projects the certainties of 1562. Rumours of war, signs in the heavens, the brilliant carnivale of the court – these seem at times just a side product of the certainty of these books. They are the very latest technology, their beings inside and out a testament to the greatness of the new. Some of us gaze in wonder, some of us check the price tags. His future is something we know more about than he can guess, but who are we only hindsighters? By the time it is agreed that the Earth goes around the sun and the sun is a minor star and let’s turn the page, he will have been taken from his imperious place in the palace, heaved across the frozen Baltic Sea, and stacked up in Swedish obscurity. He, who entertained to a nicety the courtiers and boffins of the sparkling age, will rest quietly as an outdated encyclopaedia, if that, for the occasional attention of humourless rationalists. The snow will fall outside. 1562 will be 1625 will be 1652 and so forth. He will be like a joke that has gone flat with time and is not even funny anymore, a joke that another age enjoyed till it split its sides. His future is to be defined by the cut of his cloth. His books are the limit of what was known, not the limitlessness he felt he embodied. And yet the future will not be blind to his existence. It will ponder him as a conundrum, a quirk of humanism, the necessary manager of new thoughts. Even his outfit may come back into fashion, or sprout leaves to reveal the true nature of his calling. The future will try to make a context in which to understand, even if context disappeared or ‘disapapered’ (as the Irish Portmanteau, himself a montage, would say) under Thirty Years of unloving unneighbourly War. The future will try to rewrite the Librarian and in the process make up a new Librarian who is one more collation of collective thoughts. The future flew in the body of a huge metal bird all the way to the fishing town of Stockholm, just to walk down the gilt passageway where the Librarian waits, ready for the latest reference question, ready to show you what he has in store.

Spirituality and mysticism are presently of widespread interest in the community. We have uniquely important holdings on Christian mysticism and on the history of spirituality, and a rich collection of classic spiritual writings from across the centuries, as well as representative holdings on Jewish, Buddhist, Islamic and other spiritual traditions.

Among the many modern authors the Thomas Merton holding is especially extensive and is thought to be the most comprehensive in Australia. There are also extensive holdings on women’s spirituality and mysticism.

Standing orders to series include Cistercian Fathers, Cistercian Studies, Classics of Western Spirituality, Matrologia Latina, World Spirituality, Modern Spiritual Masters, and the specialist index Bibliographia Internationalis Spiritualitatis. Monographs and periodicals are collected in major European languages.

As well as material for specialists and scholars, the Library includes a very large collection of devotional material, including prayer-books, meditations, retreats, guides to prayer, and other works for spiritual reading. Special attention is being given to the collection and retention of older devotional works, including meditations and prayer-books, which document the traditional piety and practices of the Catholic community, a literature now becoming surprisingly scarce. This collection area also includes extensive material on hagiography, lives of saints, and Christian biography.

There is a large collection of monographs on monastic and religious life, which provides a significant resource also for the history of religious women. It is hoped to further develop this part of the collection through our project “Bibliographical Heritage of Religious Instituteby offering the Library as a repository for works representing the spiritual traditions of the religious congregations.

The most important periodicals in the area of spirituality are subscribed to in various languages. About half our journal holdings in this area are unique nationally.

Although our main focus is on the Catholic tradition, there are holdings also on Protestant and Orthodox traditions, and on Jewish, Islamic, and Buddhist mysticism, and on comparative religion.

Our first priority is the collection of resources for study of the life, history and spiritual tradition of the Carmelite Order. Our aim is to develop this collection to the highest scholarly standards, allowing research to doctoral level on all aspects of the Carmelite tradition, and also to provide a comprehensive collection of devotional and spiritual works for the ordinary reader.

The Carmelitana collection includes notable research holdings on Saints Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Mary Magdalen de’ Pazzi, Thérèse of Lisieux, Edith Stein, and Elizabeth of the Trinity. There are also extensive holdings on lesser-known Carmelite spiritual writers, like Louise de la Vallière (d. 1710), once the mistress of King Louis XIV and then a Carmelite nun, who wrote on the mercy of God; or Lawrence of the Resurrection (d. 1691), whose spiritual way was to live in constant awareness of the presence of God; or Titus Brandsma (d. 1942), martyred in Dachau, “a mystic with a monthly rail pass, as one of his friends called him.

There are particularly fine bibliographical aids for research on any Carmelite theme. The Library subscribes to all scholarly Carmelite periodicals and has standing orders for all significant Carmelite series. A high proportion of our journal titles in this area is unique in the distributed national collection.

Monographs and periodicals are collected in the principal European languages, and there are some holdings also in Portuguese, Danish, Maltese, and other languages. There are also significant items in the Rare Book Collection (see below), a small number of CD recordings of music by Carmelite musicians, and a large collection of cassette recordings by Carmelite speakers on spiritual and theological topics.

The Carmelitana collection is one of the four or five finest such collections in the world.

The Carmelite Library is Australia’s finest specialised collection of books and journals in the area of spirituality and mysticism. It has been called “a national treasure”.

The Library belongs to the Australia & Timor-Leste Province of the Carmelite Friars, a Catholic religious order which originated on Mt Carmel in the Holy Land in the late 12th century and has been in Melbourne since 1882.

Originally a general theological collection, the library now specialises in Carmelitana, Spirituality, and Mariology.

When the Carmelites first arrived here in 1881, they brought the nucleus of today’s Carmelite Library with them.

Most of their books were practical aids to their pastoral ministry, but even some of these were already venerable items. Among these treasures were the Ceremoniale of 1616, which guided the priest through the intricacies of celebrating Mass according to the Order’s ancient Rite of the Holy Sepulchre, which dated to the time of the Crusades. There were also the Carmelite Constitutions of 1625 (reprinted 1721), then still in force, and some eighteenth-century liturgical books.

They also brought with them the 1606 edition of Maldonati’s highly-regarded Latin commentary on the four gospels, and Antonio Martini’s 23-volume Italian commentary on the whole Bible, in the edition of 1784-88; both of these were then still commonly used for sermon preparation.

It is probably also from this time that the Library has Daniel of the Virgin Mary’s Vinea Carmeli (1662), a collection of documents and treatises about the history and spirituality of the Order, and the three-volume 1757 folio edition of the Doctrinale of the English Carmelite theologian Thomas Netter (d. 1430).

From these beginnings the present Library slowly took shape.

The Library Takes Shape

In 1928 the Carmelites decided to train their Australian novices and students in Melbourne rather than send them to Ireland. From this time an academic library began to develop at Whitefriars House of Studies, which was first in Kew and from 1937 in Donvale.

Naturally the library collection included the textbooks and other works which were required by the students and their professors across the broad philosophical and theological range of the seminary curriculum. The collection also reflected the particular characteristics of the Order and its long spiritual tradition.

From 1955 to 1979 Fr Brian Pitman was librarian. His wide-ranging theological interests and astute buying made the Library, despite its comparatively modest size, a particularly well-chosen collection, with special strengths in scripture, systematic theology, and spirituality. As in most monastic libraries, there was also a considerable eclectic element, reflecting the varied interests of the community over the years. In recent times it has been further enriched by donations of scarce items, especially from other Carmelite libraries overseas and from religious communities at home.

By the 1980s financial pressures, the development of new theological centres, and the Order’s changing educational strategy suggested a change of policy and a different vision.

A New Policy: A Specialised Collection

On reflection, it appeared to the Carmelites that specialisation would make their Library a more significant theological and cultural resource for the community in Melbourne and beyond, and allow inevitably limited financial resources to produce the maximum benefit.

In 1990 it was decided to discontinue collecting across the whole range of theological disciplines and to concentrate in three areas closely associated with the life and spirit of the Order. These are:

• Carmelitana: all aspects of the life, history and spiritual tradition of the Order;
• Spirituality: the Christian spiritual and mystical tradition, both historical and contemporary, and its links to other world spiritual traditions;
• Mariology: the theological study of the Virgin Mary.

New Management 2023-2024

The Carmelites have formed a partnership with the University of Divinity for the management of the Library from October 2023 to December2024. During this time a University team will work with the Carmelite Library Interim Board to collaboratively develop recommendations as to the most appropriate long-term structure for the library operation.