Shedding their quiet, bookish image, librarians have proved they know how to party, and not just with a cup of tea and a scotch finger.

Canberra’s National Library of Australia racked up a hospitality and entertainment bill close to $100,000 in the 2010-2011 financial year.

The former library director was farewelled with both a dinner and a morning tea, setting the taxpayer back $16,493. Librarians and writers Jacqueline Kent, Shirley Walker, Gideon Haigh and Peter Rose also dined out at a prestigious Canberra lakeside restaurant with taxpayers footing the $1,192 bill. Should taxpayers be expected to pick up the bill for menu items such as duck breast and duck confit with cafe au lait foam or blue swimmer crab tortellini with caviar

“A staff morning tea and dinner with guest writers is understandable, but when taxpayers are tightening their belts and making ends meet for Christmas, there should be greater sensitivity from those in control of public dollars,” Senator Scott Ryan, Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business and Fair Competition, said.

The National Library of Australia was not the only cultural institution to party on the public purse. The National Museum of Australia hosted a number of exhibition openings, two of which – one about Chinese art and the other about life in children’s homes – cost $30,000 per party.

“You will be hard-pressed to explain to families counting every dollar why the museum has spent $30,000 on a party launching a new exhibition,” Senator Ryan said.

But it was Screen Australia, the Government’s direct funding body for Australian film, which relied most heavily on taxpayer-funded parties.

As well as spending $782,758 to travel to glamorous international film festivals, Screen Australia also handed taxpayers a $93,673 bill after hosting parties in Cannes, Toronto, Busan, Amsterdam and Berlin in 2010-2011. The film body also finished the year with a $12,535 Christmas party at a Sydney lawn bowls club.

“Clearly the beer at that bowls club wasn’t at genuine 1976 prices,” Senator Ryan said.

“While Australian families work hard to save all year for a turkey, some presents under the tree and a Christmas party with family, these publicly funded arts agencies seem to be partying all year round at taxpayers’ expense.”

“I hope that in the coming year, these agencies think long and hard about the hardworking Australians who are funding them before inviting the caterers to unload slabs of beer, boxes of wine and trays of finger food.”