AustLit

'In August 1928, writer and journalist Dale Collins published an in-depth article in the Melbourne Herald on the Victorian notable John Garibaldi Roberts and his extensive book collection and ‘home-made encyclopaedia’.1 Roberts, a former manager of the Melbourne Tramways and Omnibus Company, had begun collecting books and ephemera in 1878. A renowned bibliophile, Roberts was a patron of writers and artists, including CJ Dennis, John Shirlow, Tom Roberts, Jeannie Gunn, and Robert Croll. Referred to familiarly by friends as ‘Garry’, Roberts was well known in artistic and literary circles as a collector and compiler.2 The existence of his scrapbook encyclopaedia, particularly the volumes covering Australian Federation, was legendary;3 so too was his vast personal library of over 4000 books.4 In addition to this, Roberts was an inveterate collector of journals, approximately 4000 by his own reckoning, from which 50,000 articles had been taken and pasted into his 161-volume encyclopaedia' (124)