The other day, in a stairwell within the National Library of Australia, I opened a door, expecting it to lead to a corridor and a suite of offices. Instead, I found myself inside a dimly lit room filled with rows of book-laden shelves. As I looked for the exit, I saw a man removing a book from the bottom shelf. Another man walked past me carrying books and said hello. It was like a scene from Being John Malkovich, surreal and delightful, and it characterises my last few months at the National Library, where I have been curating a two-part exhibition, In a New Light: Australian Photography 1850s–2000 (the first part, which deals with the processes of colonisation, opened on 9 October 2003 and will close on 26 January 2004, and the second, focusing on modern life, will open next August).

My sense of disorientation comes in part from the sheer size of the National Library’s collections. The shelf space for publications measures 250 kilometres and is growing by seven kilometres a year, while the Pictures Collection alone holds over 600,000 photographic images. Photographs are also acquired by other collecting areas, including Manuscripts, Rare Books and Oral History. What these staggering statistics reinforce is the fact that size is a key determinant in the kinds of relationships one can have with collections. Huge collections are unknowable in their entirety; their scope greatly exceeds the limits of an individual’s knowledge.