Lorraine Doyle

I have been involved with the collection of historical materials (currently housed in the NSW office of ACM) since the formation of the collection in the early 1980’s. I was invited to join the fledgling midwives group intent on preserving the history of Crown Street Women’s Hospital after its closure: Pam Hayes, Hazel Woolston, Dorothy Rogers, Cath Robinson, Pat Sparrow and Ina Thornton. I am the last remaining member of this original team.

My enthusiasm for the ongoing preservation and development of the collections has not waned. I mostly work on the cataloguing of hard copy materials and we have over 1000 books in the collection. I am a lifetime member of ACM.

I became a nurse in 1963. Four years later, I undertook midwifery training at Crown Street Women’s Hospital in Sydney. I worked on the labour ward there for several years before practising at Manning River District Hospital in Taree. After further training in intensive care nursing at the Royal Newcastle Hospital, I was invited back to Manning River District Hospital to take over the running of their newly formed Intensive care/ recovery unit.

In 1976 I decided on a career change and moved into library work back in Sydney. I was accepted into the new Faculty of Library Science Bachelor of Arts degree at the Kuring-gai College of Advanced Education (now UTS) and commenced part time study, majoring in law. From working in a public library as a children’s librarian, I then took up a position as library manager with Butterworths Legal Publishing. In 1995 I moved to Law Book Company, which later became Thomson Reuters. I retired from there in 2012.