Obituaries Australia

A woman well-known to hundreds of Canberra children as "The Lady at the Library" died in Sydney yesterday.

She was Mrs. Maurice Saxby, formerly Miss Joyce Bonniwell, who had the task of the development of a children's library in Canberra.

Miss Bonniwell resigned in May last year on the occasion of her marriage to Mr. Maurice Saxby, a former president of the Children's Book Council of Australia.

Although a relatively young woman, she had for many years been a leading figure as a librarian in the field of children's books, a career which first brought her to Canberra from Tasmania in 1944 to take a course of study at the National Library as a Carnegie Scholar.

Mrs. L. B. Rudduck, who has long been associated with the children's library, has paid a warm tribute to Miss Bonniwell's influence as a librarian in Canberra.

She said the development of the Children's Library service came at a time when population expansion strained the resources of the public library due to the high proportion of children. In addition to her normal work as a librarian, Miss Bonniwell had delighted children with story telling on Saturday mornings, and had compiled library lists which were in demand by other libraries throughout Australia.