Fonds UAA Fonds 0561 - Gloria Strathern fonds

Gloria M. Strathern (nee van der Poots) was a professor of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alberta who wrote several bibliographies on British Columbia and Alberta. Strathern was originally from New Zealand. She received her Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of New Zealand, and a New Zealand librarianship diploma. She was also an Associate of the New Zealand Library Association. Strathern began her career in 1951 as a reference librarian in the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. She married Clifford Strathern the following year on December 20, 1952. Also in 1952, she became the first full-time professional librarian of the Hocken Collections at the University of Otago, in Dunedin, New Zealand. She was librarian there until 1963, when she moved to England to work a year at St. Anne’s College Library at Oxford University.

In 1964 Strathern moved to Canada, where she would remain for the rest of her career. She worked brief periods as a librarian at the University of Saskatchewan, the University of Toronto, and the University of Victoria. While at the University of Victoria, her first bibliographic work was published in 1970 - Navigation, Traffiques and Discoveries, 1774-1848: A Guide to the Publications Relating to the Area of British Columbia.

Gloria Strathern joined the library school at the University of Western Ontario as an associate professor in 1970. She left in 1973 to take a position as associate professor in the School of Library Science at the University of Alberta. Strathern went on to develop and teach many of the School’s courses in library management. Her areas of expertise included archives and records management, Canadian government publications, library management, and particularly bibliography. She was an active member of the Bibliographical Society of Canada, and served as President of the society from 1981-1983. While at the University of Alberta, she published the books Alberta Literature, 1954-1979 (1982), Alberta, 1954-1979: A Provincial Bibliography (1982), and Alberta Newspapers 1880-1982: An Historical Directory (1988). Her work earned her the Tremaine Medal from the Bibliographical Society of Canada in 1989. Strathern attained full professorship at the U of A in 1982, and retired to become a Professor Emeritus in 1991.