Established in 1848, the South Australian Library and Mechanics’ Institute (SALMI) had its origins in the South Australian Literary and Scientific Association (1834) and the Adelaide Mechanics Institute (1838). In 1856, SALMI was amalgamated with various other institutions to form the South Australian Institute (SAI), whose 1861, 1863, and 1869 catalogues are available in this archive.
Printed by Thomas Strode, this 1851 catalogue contains approximately 2,099 titles (excluding duplicates and alternative editions), an increase of around 1,241 titles from the 1848 catalogue. This catalogue is divided into 25 classes with the following number of titles: Agriculture (30); Antiquarian (25); Arts, Manufactures &c (28); Belles Lettres, Essays &c (50); Biography and Correspondence (141, plus 4 alt. eds); Classical Literature (31); Dictionaries and Encylopaedias (31); Fine Arts (26); Geography (13); Geology and Minerology (26); History (164, plus 1 alt. ed.); Law and Medicine (7); Metaphysics, Mental Philosophy, and Phrenology (27); Miscellaneous (124, plus 2 alt. eds); Natural History (48); Novels (638, plus 24 alt. eds or duplicates); Oratory (27); Periodicals (19); Poetry and the Drama (109); Public Records (58); Sciences and Natural Philosophy (93); Statistics, Commerce, and Public Economy (74, plus 1 alt. ed.); Theology and Ethics (45, plus 1 alt. ed.); Topography, Travels, and Voyages (226, plus 4 alt. eds); and French Works (64). The catalogue contains some inconsistencies in format: for example, titles are sometimes listed alphabetically by author or title (see Novels), and sometimes by subject (see History). Topography, Travels, and Voyages is partly organized by subject area.
Novels are the largest category in the collection, amounting to just under a third of the library’s holdings. The novelists with the most titles held include: William Harrison Ainsworth (11); Frederika Bremer (9); Bulwer Lytton (17); James Fenimore Cooper (34); Daniel Defoe (10); Charles Dickens (11); Benjamin D’Israeli (7); Maria Edgeworth (8); Catherine Gore (46); George Payne Rainsford James (46); Charles James Lever (9); Frederick (Marryat (23); Walter Scott (26, plus 21 duplicates); William Makepeace Thackeray (8); and Frances Trollope (27). The poetry and drama category contains most of the major eighteenth-century and Romantic poets.
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