The O’Donovan Catalogue Origins Collection contains Denis O’Donovan’s world-renowned 1883 catalogue of the Queensland Parliamentary Library, his hand-annotated working copy of its 1874 predecessor, and two volumes of handwritten acquisition suggestions from Members of Queensland’s Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly between 1860 and 1924. Together, they are the origins and outcome of a work of international excellence in librarianship and bibliography, out of an infant colony’s parliament. The Dewey Decimal System of its day, the creation of Denis O’Donovan’s Analytical and Classified Catalogue of the Library of the Parliament of Queensland, 1883 was a significant Australian innovation.

The O’Donovan Catalogue Origins Collection contains materials which influenced the policymaking future of an early Australian colony, directly impacting Australian history and culture. Titles suggested by Members of Parliament, acquired, or discarded by Denis O’Donovan, are a tangible record of the normalisation of their ideas within Australia, including feminist texts and labour economics.

The collection reflects ideals of education and their changes over time, particularly as working-class politicians entered the Queensland Parliament, demonstrating the relative class mobility for which Australian culture was to become known. It records the acquisition of titles in languages other than English, which were perceived as symbolic inclusions for those respective language communities, within the context of Denis O’Donovan’s helpful translation services.

The collection’s impact extends beyond the boundaries of Queensland, as it has directly affected perceptions of Australia’s cultural capital abroad. At an identity-forming stage of history, an Australian innovation achieved the logic of card catalogues the century before their conception.

The collection also documents the acquisition processes of materials which informed policy in the Pacific Islands, which continues to impact regional relations today as Queensland and Australia endeavour to acknowledge the colonial violence of the past. In facilitating the discoverability of rare periodical articles for over a century since its creation, work on the O’Donovan catalogue has impacted research all over the world.