Alison’s a complete career

The director of collection services at the State Library of WA, who joined recent Duncraig Library 40th anniversary celebrations, has worked as a librarian most of her professional life ‘either in Paris, London, in Perth, in government, in universities and now with the State Library’. ‘It has been a great career, and I’ve really enjoyed it.’ Her memories of the Duncraig Library go back to when it opened in 1974: I was 13 and this Duncraig Library was a big thing. We lived in Duncraig and the closest library was Wanneroo and at that time you had to go up Wanneroo Road to get to it. So when this library opened it was serving everybody in this area between Wanneroo and here for the whole of, at that time, the Shire of Wanneroo.

It was a massive clientele. But at that time you’d have two or three books on each shelf. So a call went out for people to donate their books to the library so they could be circulated.

So then they needed volunteers to cover the books and make them available for loaning.

I used to come every Saturday morning because I was too young to be employed.

But I trundled along and that was great. And then in January 1975 I was old enough to be employed and I was employed to work casually.

Jo Bryson was the first librarian I recall at Duncraig and she became the head of e-services for the State Government.

And there was a lady called Val Crewe who was the shire librarian then.

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