Justice Michael Kirby AC, CMG was appointed to the High Court of Australia in 1996.
Despite his extensive commitments in many areas of law and human rights, nationally and internationally, Justice Kirby has a long-standing concern for libraries.
He has expressed strong belief in the importance of libraries in a democratic society.
Libraries need friends.
Now they reach out to the wide world through Cyberspace. They will reach friends everywhere through the miracles of the new technology. Johannes Gutenberg would be quite astonished.
Australia is blessed with wonderful libraries and with resources available to all who live here. Now we can share these globally. But libraries - old and new - can only flourish with the support of government and citizens. FOLA mobilizes the latter to speak to the former and to each other in support of libraries.
I welcome FOLA's web site. I encourage everyone who reads this, wherever they may be, to support libraries of every kind. They are the treasurehouse of human intellect. And out of intellect, we hope, come wisdom, tolerance and peace.