Early editions of children's books. A major move is on the list of life's traumatic experiences. So it was not surprising that when Irena Murray, MArch'91, became the head of the Rare Books and Special Collections Division of McGill's Lib-raries in 1996, the staff was a little wary of the architecture buff with the intense blue eyes. Murray soon made it clear that she thought the division should have both a new home and a new attitude. For her part, Murray wanted to throw open the doors.
Nobody wants to preside over a dead collection.
I wanted to see some new faces in here. Making that possible has required consolidating the collections and moving everything to a more suitable location. Marshalling her considerable lobbying skills, Murray secured new space for the division. The move, which in the end played a pivotal role in the new director winning over her staff, took place last summer. Asking them to handle much of the planning for the move, Murray also gave her staff a lot of responsibility for figuring out where everything should go.