Mary Ronnie, who became the world's first woman national librarian by breaking "the male dominance of the library hierarchy when she was appointed head of New Zealand's National Library," died March 17, Radio New Zealand reported. She was 96.
Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Ronnie came to New Zealand with her family in 1937 and was educated at Otago Girls' High School and Otago University, earning her BA in 1951 and an MA in 1965. She graduated from the New Zealand Library School in 1952 and embarked on a career in public libraries.
She was "a crusader for public libraries, believing they needed to be made more attractive to all sectors of the community," RNZ wrote. "In her view, libraries were meeting places as well as resource centres and it was the librarian's job to find good quality material acceptable to a wide range of people. She had no time for the librarian who hid behind a desk and piles of books. And she firmly believed that no library should have a 'silence' sign."
Ronnie spent much of her career at the Dunedin Public Library, becoming city librarian in 1968, and went on to head the National Library in 1976, the first woman to be appointed. She held the post until 1981 when she married and took early retirement to accompany her husband to Auckland. The following year she was appointed to head the Auckland City Library but left three years later for a new career as an historian and lecturer. She moved to Monash University in Australia in 1987, becoming acting professor and head of its graduate department of librarianship before retiring again in 1992 and returning to New Zealand.
Ronnie was a Fellow of the New Zealand Library Association and was awarded the Queen's Service Order in 1982. The University of Otago gave her an honorary doctorate in 2007.