Vale Jon Brudenall

 

MICHAEL JOHN BRUDENALL, 31 October 1938 - 27 January 2016.

Jon Brudenall at an ALIA General Council meeting 1994

 

Our dear colleague John’s funeral notice read: Passed away peacefully at Clare Holland House, with his family by his side. Loving and much loved husband and best friend of Sue for 54 years and father of their children, Helen (dec), Andrew (dec), David and Peter. Admiring father-in-law of Kirsti and Kylie. Proud grandfather of Tom, Stephen, Jack, Otte, Harry, Mia and of his step-grandchildren Emma, Sophie and Imogen. Dearest brother to his disabled sister, Kay. Friend of Marianne and Joanne. A man of principle, who was kind and considerate to all. He will be greatly missed.

And ALIA posted: As reported in the Canberra Times on 30/1, former President (1979-1980) and Fellow John Brudenall passed away peacefully on 27 January 2016. Mr Brudenall had a distinguished career in parliamentary libraries and was responsible for planning the library at Parliament House in Canberra, which opened in 1988.

He was a highly active member of the Library Association of Australia (ALIA's predecessor), a keen advocate for the role of Library Technicians, and a valued contributor to LIS education. He will be greatly missed by former colleagues and friends in the library world.

John’s Fellowship, conferred in 1986, the citation for which can be found here: https://www.alia.org.au/john-brudenall outlines a distinguished career in parliamentary librarianship complemented by a wide involvement in professional activities.

It would seem from another obituary from Melbourne High School that our dear colleague John was also known as ‘Mick’ in his youth. Yet he was John to many of his library colleagues. And a search through her records and photo albums during her time on ALIA General Council in the mid-late1990s lead Kerry Smith to find this comment on the ALIA archive about what was then the new ALIA website:

       As a recently retired, but still very interested member, I find ALIAnet and the information the          Home Page leads me to extremely useful. I am a user several times each day. And, I agree               with Kerry Smith's comments which will be no surprise of course.

      John Brudenall, Canberra, Australia - Wednesday 13 November 1996, at 12:24:50 (EST).

John’s continuous and professional contributions to all levels of the Association were and are outstanding. John commented in inCite in February 1994 that Sue, soon to be his wife, and he were among the initial intake for the newly established library school in Canberra, and that his later work in the National Library “gave us an enormous enthusiasm for libraries and librarianship” – an enthusiasm which in my contacts with John never waned.

Robin Hempel’s comments: … I had the privilege of working under John Brudenall in the early stages of my library career when I was appointed as a “Graduate Librarian Grade 1” to the National Library in Canberra, early in 1964. My memories are that John was in charge of “Binding” in the Serials Section of Acquisitions and I was assigned to his team. Our workplace was the Kingston Annex, a huge, unwieldy warehouse with more staff than I had ever seen together in one place, surrounded by enormous collections of serials, magazines and newspapers.

John was an amazing mentor, supervisor and leader. His approachability, patience, good humour and willingness to share his knowledge and expertise proved invaluable in those first, challenging months of my career. Throughout the years, I was always greeted warmly when I met up with John at numerous national conferences and meetings and I continued to be impressed by the significance of his contribution to the library profession and to ALIA. Equally valuable to those of us fortunate to know and work with John were his personal qualities. John Brudenall’s legacy will continue to be an inspiration to all in our profession, from those in training or new to the profession, those in managerial or directorial positions through to the Retirees.

Further information about Jon can be found in the Wikipedia entry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brudenall_%28librarian%29