Librarians and journalists
Audio transcript
Bennett:
In January of 1947, the library here of what was then the Parliamentary and
National Library, they were combined, had interviews and I was selected to
become a library trainee.
My father was getting anxious I think because I went to university people had … I
was the first one from that district, and a lot of these old farmers were saying to
dad, “Why are you sending your daughter to university? She’ll only get married.”
[laughter]
Jean:
Of the six people who came here, were they all women? Men? A mixed group?
Bennett:
Oh yes, women.
Jean:
All women?
Bennett:
There were four of them with a bachelor’s degree and then going onto training.
There were two older ones who were already in libraries after a degree but without
this training certificate, this preliminary certificate it was called.
Jean:
Do you remember the first time you came into what is now the Old Parliament
House?
Bennett:
Oh yes. This… as you can realise from my background, I was a country girl so
really this was my first time away from home and I met up with the two other
trainees who’d been put into the Kurrajong so I was getting to know them as we
walked through the frost. It was about half past nine in the morning. We walked
from the Kurrajong to Parliament House and it was a bitterly cold winter weekend.
It had been snowing on the Sunday, everything white with frost.