The Beginning of a Career & a Marriage

After getting my postgraduate diploma in librarianship, I returned to Malaysia (to my hometown Pulau Pinang) to begin the working phase of my life. I wished I could go on gallivanting as a student/tourist-traveller but it was time for a reality check. I had to go back to serve as a qualified librarian at the Universiti Sains Malaysia, second oldest uni in the country. 

The USM Library began in this building, later
to house the Museum & Gallery 

As a rookie librarian, I was inducted into all aspects of an academic library. Then at the Chief Librarian's recommendation, I chose to be in the Readers' Service Division because staff here interact a lot with the lecturers and students, the library's main clients. We initiated a Reader Education programme, advised by Australian consultant librarian Chris Mulder. The programme was to focus on certain subject matters and their relevant references that would assist library clients in their library research.

Anyway, before I bore anyone, let's just say that my introduction to working life as a librarian was anything but boring, and being surrounded daily by books was the icing on the cake.

At the end of the year (1976) I got married, and a few months later left for England to be with my husband M who was doing his PhD at Salford University.