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Schwirtlich receives ALIA’s Redmond Barry Award

The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) has awarded the prestigious Redmond Barry Award to National Library of Australia (NLA) director-general Anne-Marie Schwirtlich.

Schwirtlich will be presented with the award at a forthcoming event. The Redmond Barry Award, named after the founder of the State Library of Victoria, is for ‘outstanding service to or promotion of a library and information service or libraries and information services’.

Schwirtlich, who is an archivist by training, became NLA director-general in 2011 where her ‘list of achievements will long out-last her tenure’. ‘During her period in office, Trove has been embedded as an essential component of the Australian research infrastructure, growing to more than 500 million resources and achieving the highest award for Excellence in eGovernment in 2011,’ ALIA said in a statement.

ALIA also noted that during Schwirtlich’s tenure, the library ‘successfully negotiated a change to legal deposit legislation that will enable the library to acquire and preserve electronic and born-digital publications for future generations’; ran an ‘exemplerary’ exhibition program; and ‘oversaw the most substantial transformation of public spaces in the National Library building since it opened in 1968’.

Prior to joining the NLA, Schwirtlich held roles at numerous cultural institutions, including the National Archives of Australia, the Australian War Memorial, the State Library of Victoria and Arts Victoria.

 

Category: Library news