Brenda Elizabeth Moon M.A. (Oxford), M.Phil. (Leeds), Ph.D. (Hull) Curator 2002-2005 Brenda Moon made an outstanding contribution to the development of University Library as its head from 1980 until her retirement in 1996, she was an efficient Curator of the RSE 2002-05, and her influence on all those who knew her well was immense, her diffidence of manner concealing great drive and determination (not for nothing is credited with designating her “the steel snowdrop”). Born (in Stoke-on-Trent, to be precise) while her parents, Clement and Mabel Moon, were living in Newcastle-under-Lyme, she spent her early years there. When she was 11, the family moved to Birmingham and she received her secondary education at King Edward's Grammar School for Girls, Camp Hill, gaining there her abiding love for the Classics. From there she went to St Hilda's College, Oxford, to read Greats (1949–1953), followed by professional training at the School of Librarianship and Archives, UCL, 1954-55. She was joint winner of the Cowley Prize for Bibliography in 1955 and became a Fellow of the Library Association in 1958.

Her first professional post was as an assistant librarian at the (1955-62). While there she compiled for the Institute of Classical Studies two lists of publications on Mycenaean civilisation from 1935 to 1955 and from 1956 to 1960 (London, 1957 and 1961). From Sheffield she moved to Hull, at first as Sub-Librarian (1962-67) and then as Deputy Librarian (1967-79), under Philip Larkin, who relied on her a great deal (for a time, during Larkin’s absence on leave, she became Acting Librarian). In particular it was she who managed the installation of the country’s first GEAC automated library system. Earlier, she had become the secretary of the Southeast Asia Library Group, which was founded at an ad-hoc meeting held at Hull in 1968, and subsequently the editor of its Newsletter (until she left on her appointment as Librarian at Edinburgh University). Published outcomes from this include a Survey of Library Resources (Hull: SEALG, 1969, 2nd edn 1973) and a union catalogue, Periodicals for South-East Asian Studies (London: Mansell, 1979), as well as a Directory of libraries and special collections on Asia and North Africa, with R.L. Collison (London: Lockwood, 1970). Brenda Moon was the first woman to head a Scottish university library (and one of the first in any major UK research library). On arrival at Edinburgh University Library at the beginning of 1980, she was immediately involved in the discussions on library automation that had just begun and she soon achieved the second GEAC installation in the UK. Edinburgh University Library may have been a late entrant to the library automation race but, thanks to her vision and the active support of the University’s computing service, it became the first major university library in the UK to tackle the huge issues of scale involved in delivering a computer-based service. Brenda Moon was a strong proponent of collaboration. She herself was a co-founder of the Consortium of University Research Libraries and its chairman 1992-96, and also secretary and then chairman of the SCONUL Advisory Committee on Access to Materials (1987-93). In the wake of membership of the Vice-Chancellor’s committee to enquire into library provision in Oxford (1986- 87 — a heavy commitment involving weekly meetings there for a period), she became an active Assessor to the Curators of the Bodleian Library on its automation plans (1987); at the same period she was also adviser to the libraries of Lund, Linköping and Uppsala Universities on library automation. Equally she insisted that Edinburgh University Library as a whole play its part in co-operative networks and enabled members of her staff to meet specialist opposite numbers in other libraries, arranging for exchanges between Edinburgh staff and their opposite numbers from other libraries, and for librarians from elsewhere to be seconded to Edinburgh University Library within their particular fields, which undoubtedly enhanced the name and reputation of the Library across the world. She clearly foresaw the importance of international collaboration a decade before the internet made all libraries global. The interest she showed in her staff is well remembered. At the same time she was a powerful advocate of the importance of building special collections and archives and bringing the papers of poets and commercial companies to the university; major collections that came to the Library during her librarianship include the BBC Press Cuttings, papers of the poets , Norman MacCaig and Hugh MacDiarmid, the papers of John Middleton Murry, the Barry Bloomfield and A H Campbell Collections of editions of W H Auden, the Collection, and Corson Sir Collection. She revived the Friends of the University Library, encouraging their role in funding acquisitions. Brenda Moon was also one of the last of the generation of scholar librarians. She had a scholar’s interest in the Library’s collections and its history, arriving in Edinburgh during the University Library’s own 400th anniversary celebrations and shortly before retirement writing a booklet on the history of its Library Committee. She gained her M.Phil. in 1987 from Leeds University with a thesis on the botanical artist Marianne North, and later in 2002, when she was able to resume her research after retirement, gained her Ph.D. from the , with a thesis on the founder of the Egypt Exploration Society, Amelia Edwards, which became the basis for her book More usefully employed: Amelia B. Edwards, writer, traveller and campaigner for ancient Egypt (London: Egypt Exploration Society, 2006). She herself had a lifelong interest in botany, at first sketching and later photographing wild flowers on the many travels to different part of the globe, from Alaska to Tasmania, often undertaken in company with her younger sister, Mary Moon, former headmistress of Manchester High School for Girls, by whom she is survived. She was also a keen hill walker until 2000, when the sudden onset of impaired mobility ruled it out. Another frustration in her last few years was rapidly failing eyesight, limiting her scholarly activities, with the result that her final piece of research was left not quite complete at her death. Brenda Moon was elected a Fellow of the Society in 1992 and subsequently became its Curator in 2002-2005, doing excellent work in that role and in organising its library collections. She retired in 1996 from Edinburgh University Library, which had by then revived in her honour the older title of Librarian to the . Her church affiliation always meant a great deal to her throughout her life. In Edinburgh she was an active member and elder of Augustine United Church, George IV Bridge, where her concern for others and her incisive comments and advice at meetings were as evident as in her professional life. It is typical of her Christian commitment that the vast bulk of her significant personal library was sold at the annual Christian Aid book sale at St Andrew's and St George's Church, Edinburgh, after Edinburgh and Hull University Libraries had selected a certain number of items. Both in the church and in the library her hospitality was well known and many meetings at both were rendered more agreeable by the baking she provided; excelling as an administrator, she was also eminently practical. John Brockington Brenda Elizabeth Moon, M.A. (Oxford), M.Phil. (Leeds), Ph.D. (Hull); born 11th April 1931, elected FRSE 1992 (and Curator 2002-05), died 7th March 2011.