First Woman University Librarian, 1980

In January 1980 Brenda Elizabeth Moon (1931-2011) became Edinburgh University's first female University Librarian.

In her 16 years in the role, she was a pioneer, bringing the library into the late 20th century, with a clear vision of the transformative influence digitisation would have on libraries.

She persuaded the university to speed up its automation programme, and installed the second Geac system in the Uk at Edinburgh, having installed the first at Hull where she had been Philip Larkin's deputy. Edinburgh University Library thus became one of the first to network a version of its online catalogue. Brenda's early interest in library automation at Hull was developed at Edinburgh, which, under her guidance, became the first major university library in the UK to tackle the huge issues of scale in delivering a computer-based service.

Library reached out to Faculties and Departments more proactively than before. Insisted that EUL play its part in any library co-operative networks, thus enhancing and enriching the services that EUL provided for its own users. Arranged for exchanges between EUL staff and their opposites from other libraries, and for librarians from elsewhere to be seconded to EUL within their specialist spheres. Moon was an active member of several library organisations, both Scottish and international, and was a co-founder of CURL (Consortium of University Research Libraries, now RLUK), set up to address the specific issues of larger research libraries. In these organisations she participated fully, helping to turn them from what could have been gentlemen's dining clubs into meaningful professional organisations.

She was a strong proponent of collaboration and a co-founder of the Consortium of University Research Libraries. She clearly foresaw the importance of international collaboration a decade before the internet made all libraries global.

Scholarly commitment to Library's collections and history. Major collections that came to the Library during her Librarianships include the literary papers of George Mackay Brown, Norman MacCaig, Hugh Macdiamrd, and the Arthur Koestler and Corson Sir Walter Scott Collections. At the same time she was also a powerful advocate of the importance of building special collections and archives and bringing the papers of poets and commercial companies to the university.

At Edinburgh she re-invigorated the special collections, paving the way for the service the library now provides which incorporate many sorts of objects: books, manuscripts, archives, museum objects and art works. She brought major collections to Edinburgh University Library, including the papers of modern Scottish poets such as George Mackay Brown, Norman MacCaig and Hugh MacDiarmid, materials on WH Auden, the Arthur Koestler collection and the Corson-Sir Walter Scott collection.

Revived the Friends of the University Library and encouraged them to contribute more and more to the purchase of books and manuscripts.

Sources

• Peter B. Freshwater, 'Brenda Elizabeth Moon MA MPhil PhD FRSE Librarian to the University 1980-1996: An Appreciation', University of Edinburgh Journal, XLV, no. 1 (June 2011), p. 7.