Women’s History Month – Mary Macbean, librarian and ‘a genius’ #WINspiration

Category: Blog, News, Professional Development

by Kerry Briers, University of Dundee Library

The photograph above shows the entrance to Kirkcaldy Central Library, where Mary Macbean worked. Image courtesy of www.kirkcaldyin50objects.com.

In a previous #WINspiration blog, Kirsten MacQuarrie identified ongoing issues with empowering women to achieve library leadership, a theme that has also shaped the inaugural WINspiration Conference, taking place online this International Women’s Day. Whilst there is clearly still some way to go in relation to this, the situation around 100 years ago was even more stark, with very few women employed in libraries, let alone being library leaders. There was even concern expressed about the dangerous influence a library could have on women. A local newspaper report was concerned that in other towns with libraries ‘notably working girls and women, married women, servant girls and old women…have contracted a taste for novel reading’. This habit of reading ‘like opium smoking or dram-drinking – a dissipation, a vice’, had led to them neglecting their work, and their mental powers.

An outlier in this period was Mary Macbean. Mary entered the profession at a young age, starting work as a library assistant in the Beveridge Library, Kirkcaldy in 1900. She was appointed to the post of librarian a year later aged 21, owing to ill health of the previous male librarian. This was unusual, both in terms of her age and given that when the library was established in 1895, all discussions reported in the local press related to what kind of gentleman would be appropriate as the librarian. Despite her appointment, there was clearly some disparity in her treatment, given that her wages at this time were 2/3 of the wage that the previous librarian had been appointed on six years earlier.

Within the library, Mary established an all-female team, being assisted initially by Miss Tod and Miss Turner. When it was suggested that Mary take a pay-rise, she requested that her assistants pay was increased before hers was considered. The library annual reports make it clear that she supported staff development for others, encouraging the attendance of conferences, professional courses and lectures. Mary herself was also very professionally active, and welcomed the annual conference of the Scottish Library Association to Kirkcaldy in 1931.

Mary was responsible for forward-looking developments in the library service. Echoing current concerns relating to the cost of living crisis, she recognised that the library should be a warm space available to all. She advocated strongly for the development of the collection even in the uncertain economic times around the First World War. When the library moved to new premises to accommodate the growing stock and level of usage, she ensured that there was a children’s department separate from the adult collection. The books in both of these areas were open access, an innovation that she had successfully introduced to the non-fiction stock in 1921.

Mary continued in her role until her death in 1943. Her contribution was recognised in many local newspapers, with the Fife Free Press noting that she was ‘largely responsible for building up the excellent library service in Kirkcaldy with her genius for this type of work and a sound knowledge of literature’.

More information on Mary Macbean and the development of the library service in Kirkcaldy is available at www.kirkcaldyin50objects.com/objects in object number 42.