About Margery C Ramsay and Barrett Reid

Margery C Ramsay

Margery C Ramsay was the first qualified librarian appointed to a public library service in country Victoria, at Ballarat in 1946. In 1950, under her guidance, the Ballarat service became part of the Central Highlands Regional Library Service, one of the first regional library services in Victoria.

Margery Ramsay moved to Tasmania in 1954, later working as Librarian-in-Charge of municipal library services. In 1968 she returned to Victoria as Principal of the Library Training School at the State Library of Victoria. She became Deputy Principal Librarian in 1969 and was Principal Librarian from 1974 to 1981.

She was awarded Fellowships by the Australian Library and Information Association and the Royal Australian Institute of Public Administration. She died in 1998.

Barrett Reid

From 1967 to 1982 Barrett Reid was Executive Officer of the Public Libraries Division at the State Library of Victoria. He was a strong advocate of public library services, and 207 of Victoria’s 211 councils provided public library services by the time he retired.

Barrett Reid’s influence was also seen in the Victorian government’s policy initiative of joint-use libraries between local government and schools. Collaboration was central to Barrett Reid’s vision for the delivery of public library services (Technilib, the cataloguing services agency, was another of his achievements).

Barrett Reid was awarded a Fellowship by the Australian Library and Information Association and, in 1983, was made a Member of the Order of Australia. He died in 1995.