Celebrating Gillian Currie’s 3 decades at the NGA Research Library
After working at the National Gallery of Australia’s Research
Library for well over 3 decades, Gillian Currie (Acquisitions Librarian) retired
on 11 March 2015 to enjoy some much-deserved relaxation (and some library
volunteering!). J. Margaret Shaw, former
Chief Librarian from 1978 - 2004, reflects on Gillian’s time at the Gallery.
In February 1979 a newly qualified and very young Gillian
Currie joined a small team located in a warehouse at Fyshwick. In Gillian’s words we were
“…in the round spaceship building in Fyshwick that had as its
neighbours various sex shops and other salubrious businesses. For a 22
year old straight out of library school it was quite an experience”.
The task facing this group was to create a research library
for the National Gallery of Australia, then known as the Australian National
Gallery. Initially and officially, Gillian’s
appointment was as a cataloguer/reference librarian but of course in the early
days, no-one was strictly limited to their defined duties whether in the
Research Library or beyond. Panic
stations could cover anything from filing ephemera, re-shelving or moving the
entire library or helping to mount works for an exhibition. It was not unheard of for the Chief Librarian
to find her entire staff missing when an emergency arose. With the move to the new building in Parkes
things became more formal but those with Fyshwick memories felt very
privileged. Between 1979 and 11 March 2015, Gillian went
on to hold virtually all senior positions in the Research Library at one time
or another. In particular, her contribution
to collection development, particularly to the rare books collection, greatly
enriched the holdings of the Research library.
In addition to showing signs of becoming a notably talented
librarian, Gillian brought with her considerable political experience and
knowledge of work-place relations and related matters gleaned from her role as
National Secretary of Australian Young Labor. This proved to be a great benefit
both to the staff and the management of the Gallery as her emphasis on
negotiation for the good of all parties rather than confrontation worked to
everyone’s benefit. Nevertheless, the
sight of Gillian and colleagues demonstrating outside the building did awaken
the awareness of some managers.
For me these skills had particular appeal as, again in her
words:
“[T]he then union delegate of the Professional Officers’ Association
(which covered Librarians, Curators and Conservators in the Public Service),
dumped the role of union delegate on me. As she was my boss, I could
hardly say no…. ”.
Outside the Gallery, her participation on behalf of all
government librarians was to prove of great benefit. Gillian was immediately drawn into the
initial moves by the Librarians’ Group of the POA to increase wages and
conditions for government librarians.
This developed into a full scale and successful Librarians Work Value
case, the first of a number of moves to improve the position of librarians
during the 1980s with Gillian at the helm as President of the Canberra Branch
of the POA and later CEO and Federal President over-seeing the amalgamation of
the POA with the CPSU to form the PSU.
As well as her professional and political skills, Gillian
brought to the job personal qualities which made her a pleasure to work
with. The most noticeable of these were
loyalty, both to her colleagues and to the Gallery, sympathy for her fellow staff
members throughout the organisation and willingness to take time to assist
those with problems.
Above all, I doubt if any of her colleagues will fail to miss
her sense of humour and the infectious laughter which could help make a tough
day better. This last quality helped her
to deal with some of the more outrageous queries which do, at times, face an
art reference librarian or the demands made on staff in a new building with a
few teething problems such as mushrooms in the reading room which she crawled
under a bench to remove.
She leaves behind many friends all over the building – some
of whom have shared picnics at which frustrations could be taken out on a
piñata (really meant for the children in the party but enjoyed by all).
Gillian’s professional reputation is not just known to her
colleagues. She has been admired,
respected and sought out by those external users of the Research Library as a most
knowledgeable, skilled and determined reference librarian whose in depth
familiarity with the Research Library’s collections will make her sorely missed
– although the National Gallery’s loss is the National Portrait Gallery’s gain
as she has joined the voluntary team of librarians, including me, working to
create a focussed library for this institution. She has already started to expand my
cataloguing skills by passing on her experience!
J. Margaret Shaw, Volunteer Librarian, National Portrait
Gallery
Bibliography
(2011, May 5). Shows cut as
gallery faces age of minimalism. The Canberra Times. p. 6.
Fulltext
available via EBSCOhost.
Currie, G. (2010). Art
exhibition teams. Incite, 31(8), 27.
Fulltext
available via EBSCOhost.
Currie, G., & Shaw, M.
(2002). What price art librarianship in the twenty-first century?. Art
Documentation: Bulletin of the Art Libraries Society of North America, 21(2),
32-34.
Fulltext
available via EBSCOhost.
Switzer, M.A., Jakimow, R.,
Currie, G., Beasley, L. & Roost, K. (1996). Why benchmarking?: benchmarking and Commonwealth cultural/heritage
agencies. [Canberra], Joint Middle Management Development Project.
Currie, G. (February 1992).
Merger set, now the real work begins. The
Professional: the federal industrial news of the POA.
Currie, G. Demonstrating the
Library’s value at the National Gallery of Australia Research Library, in Abid,
A.B. (2007). Art Museum Libraries and Librarianship.
Currie, G. (1992). A nice job
for a lady: industrial issues for librarians in the 90s. Australian Library
and Information Association Conference Proceedings, no. 2. pp 80-86.
Currie, G. (23 August 2006).
Integration of bibliographic and research information into museum objects
collection management system: web based bibliography on photographic resources
relevant to the Asia/Pacific region. In Art libraries: Bonding past and future.
Ancient cultural heritage and information technology, World Library and
Information Congress: 72nd IFLA General Conference and Council,
Seoul, Korea.
