The Australian Library Journal

Guest editorial

W Boyd Rayward

Over the course of her long and distinguished career, Margaret Trask was involved intimately, creatively and in many cases for extensive periods with nearly every aspect of Australian librarianship. Latterly as a member of the Council of the University of Technology, Sydney and as its deputy chancellor, she was also concerned with more general developments in Australian higher education. In identifying some highlights of her career, her pioneering work as a young public librarian deserves recognition. She was a driving force in the initiatives which led to major Commonwealth funding for school library buildings. She was a distinguished and innovative library educator, first at the University of New South Wales and then at Kuring-gai College of Advanced Education where she founded a new Department of Library and Information Studies to carry out an innovative approach to professional library education in Australia. She was a strong and effective president of the Library Association of Australia at what was a perilous time in its history. The Australian Information Management Association (AIMA) was her creation to fulfil her vision of improving the management of Australian libraries and identifying and developing the leadership potential of library staff throughout the country. It is in need of a full formal study in its own right, so important was it in its time and for what it expressed of Margaret's approach, at once pragmatic and visionary, to what she considered to be a major deficiency in Australian libraries. Finally, those of us who were there will remember her unique role, and the great style with which she carried it out, in the management of the Australian Libraries Summit in 1988 and the related consensus-building meetings that followed it.

Margaret's death came as something of a shock to many of her friends and colleagues. Before she died she indicated that she did not want a large funeral. She conceded that if we wished, Warren Horton,1, Mairéad Browne2 and I, all close friends of hers as well as colleagues, could organise a ceremony or remembrance. This, she insisted in typical style, should be a happy and celebratory occasion. Held at UTS on the 28 February 2003, with a large attendance of family, friends and colleagues, it was a moving but indeed happy occasion. At that time Warren, Mairéad and I had also canvassed the idea of a more permanent memorial for her in the form of a festschrift issue of the Australian Library Journal, a proposal in which we were strongly encouraged by the journal's editor, John Levett.

Our point of departure was that Margaret's death provided an occasion for us to stop and take stock of some of the developments that have taken place over the past decades around the fundamental professional themes that shaped her career, such as public and school libraries, professional education, the role of associations, leadership and staff development, and the introduction and assimilation of national professional initiatives. We were clear that articles for the festschrift might well refer to Margaret's contribution where this was appropriate, but our goal was essentially not eulogistic and only valedictory in a very general sense. We expected, of course, to create something that would be an enduring testimony of affection and respect for a remarkable person. Its contents we hoped might interest those to come to explore what she did and what she had to say about the things that she thought were important. But most importantly we sought for the bulk of this issue of the Journal the publication of solid, thoughtful assessments of matters of professional and national importance that Margaret would herself have found interesting - perhaps challenging - to read. We hoped that the contributions would not only look back, but would discuss current issues and assess what the immediate future seems to hold.

Margaret was one of my oldest and closest friends as well as a colleague and it is still difficult for me to accept that she has gone. It has been a great privilege to work with the editorial committe and authors of the articles that form this issue of the Australian Library Journal in her honour.

End notes

1. Warren Horton, former director general of the National Library of Australia who worked with Margaret for many years, was a man of great personal presence who spoke movingly at her celebration ceremony. He died on 25 November 2003.

2. When Margaret left Kuring-gai College of Advanced Education to create AIMA, Mairéad Browne who had been appointed by her, replaced her as Head of what was now the School of Library and Information Studies, one of four schools into which the academic programs of the College had been divided. Since amalgamation, Mairéad has held major academic and administrative positions at UTS, Sydney.

Biographical information

W Boyd Rayward is emeritus professor in the University of New South Wales and currently research professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois. He was made an Honorary Member of ALIA in 2002. He first met Margaret Trask when he joined the University of New South Wales School of Librarianship, as it then was, as a lecturer in 1970. He occupied her office while she was away on sabbatical and her book cases introduced him to the world of children's literature which has fascinated him ever since.