Library Board Members
Members of the Library Board are appointed by the Governor in accordance with The Library Board of Western Australia Act 1951. The Board has up to 13 members including a Chairman and Vice Chairman. The CEO and State Librarian attends Board meetings as the Executive Officer.
Current members of The Library Board of Western Australia are:
Dr Margaret Nowak (Chairman)
Cr Deb Hamblin (Vice Chairman)
Ms Kris Bizzaca
Mr Martin Clery
Cr Janet Davidson JP
Ms Imogen Garner
Mr Richard Giles
Ms Sonja Heath
Ms Marie-Anne Keeffe
Ms Allanah Lucas
Cr Giuseppe (Joe) Marino
Cr Kaye McGlew
Mr Michael D Murray
Dr Margaret Nowak (Chairman)
First appointed 2002
Term ends 2015
Margaret Nowak is an academic economist with interests in labour market economics and corporate governance. She was the founding Director of The Graduate School of Business, Curtin University of Technology, a position she held from 1993 to 2004. Dr Nowak is currently a principal researcher in the Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility Research Unit at the Graduate School. She has served on several government and community boards and committees including Princess Margaret Hospital Board in the 1980s. She was also a Commissioner with the Lotteries Commission of WA from 1989-94, and Chair of the Gordon Reid Foundation for Youth, 1990-94. From 1991-97 Professor Nowak was Chair of the Management Committee at the Fremantle Arts Centre. She is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Councillor Deb Hamblin (Vice Chairman)
First appointed 2007
Term ends 2015
Deb Hamblin manages the Rockingham Regional Campus Community Library. She has worked for Murdoch University, one of the joint-use library partners, since 1978 in a variety of roles including Manager Regional Development and Director Workplace Learning.
Councillor Hamblin is passionate about joint-use libraries and assists other Australian libraries investigate the opportunities that joint-use can offer. She has been a member of a variety of management boards including Kwinana Industries Education Partnership, Kolbe Catholic College, SCALES Legal Service, Peel Education and TAFE Campus and Murdoch University’s Academic Council. Councillor Hamblin is currently Deputy Mayor of the City of Rockingham. She is also an Associate member of the Australian Library and Information Association.
Ms Kris Bizzaca
First appointed 2007
Term ends 2016
Kris Bizzaca is a professional historian and has worked as a consultant in Western Australia’s history and heritage industry since 1998. She takes an active role in this community, which is reflected in the positions she has held on various non-profit organisations including the President of the Professional Historians Association (WA) (2003 – 2007; 2010 – 2012).
Ms Bizzaca was a committee member of the Historical Records Rescue Consortium which, with the assistance of a $3 million grant from Lotterywest, completed a significant project to preserve and make accessible at-risk archival material held at the J. S. Battye Library of West Australian History. She is currently the chair of a group of like-minded organisations that received funding from Lotterywest to partner with the State Library in a project that will digitise approximately 7,500 hours of oral history tape recordings held in the library’s collection.
In 2012, Kris Bizzaca was appointed as a Director of the State Library of WA Foundation.
Mr Martin Clery
First appointed 2012
Term (Ex Officio)
Martin Clery is Assistant Executive Director in the Department of Education’s Statewide Services Division. In this role he oversees the curriculum and student needs support services delivered to public schools across the state. He also represents the Department of Education on a variety of inter-agency policy and advisory groups.
Mr Clery began his career in education as a history and geography teacher in 1990. Until 2005 he worked in secondary schools in both regional and metropolitan locations. Since this time, he has held a variety of professional and curriculum support roles with the Department of Education.
Mr Clery represents, by arrangement, the Director General of Education on the Library Board.
Councillor Janet Davidson JP
First appointed 2001
Term ends 2017
Janet Davidson is a business woman, consultant and is Executive Officer to The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (WA). She has been on the City of Perth Council since 1998 and is the Deputy Lord Mayor. She holds a Master’s Degree in Management from the University of Western Australia, and is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD).
Councillor Davidson is on the National Board of ALGWA (Australian Local Government Women’s Association) and was National Vice President for seven years. She is also a member of the Perth Theatre Trust Board and the Australia Day Council.
Ms Imogen Garner
First appointed 2007
Term ends 2015
Imogen Garner is the University Librarian and Director of the John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library at Curtin University. She has also worked at The University of Western Australia Library, and for the Department of Education.
Ms Garner has held various positions with the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA), including President in 2004-05, Chair of the Board of Education 2000-02 and is currently Chair of the Editorial Board for the journal Australian Academic and Research Libraries. She was made a Fellow of the Association for her record of exceptional achievement and leadership in the field of library and information science in 2006. She is also a member of the International Association of Scientific and Technological University Libraries (IATUL) Board. Her qualifications include a Masters in Education, a Bachelor of Arts and a Graduate Diploma in Management.
Mr Richard Giles
First appointed 2013
Term ends 2017
Richard Giles has been involved with technology since the eighties, mobile phones since 1990, and the internet since 1994 when he built corporate websites, lectured about online commerce at Curtin University, and sold corporate Internet connections.
He has since worked for Sun Microsystems, authored two books, won an award for podcasting, and launched a number of web applications. He is now Strategy Directory at Adapptor.
Mr Giles has presented at a number of events, on radio, and television, about technology and its impact, and is in frequent demand as a lecturer.
Ms Sonja Heath
First appointed 2012
Term ends 2015
Sonja Heath is a qualified lawyer, with additional qualifications in Finance and Geology. She has worked in legal practice and as an executive in property development and business consultancy companies.
Ms Marie-Anne Keeffe
First appointed 2011
Term ends 2015
Marie-Anne Keeffe is a strategic media consultant with extensive experience in television, radio and print. An award-winning journalist, she has worked as a producer and reporter on some of Australia’s top rating programs and has intimate knowledge of life behind and in front of the camera and microphone. Her management, organisational skills and analytical ability saw her become the first female producer of Channel Seven’s primetime current affairs program, Today Tonight. Now Managing Director of Gobsmaked Media, Ms Keefe continues to create television programs at Channel 7 as well as helping Western Australian business people become media aware through a highly effective system of key messaging for profile and profit. Her interest in the legal and ethical aspects of today’s media saw her take up a law degree, and in 2009 she graduated from Murdoch University with honours. Her work includes consulting to leading Perth public relations companies, delivering entertaining and inspiring speeches, MC duties and facilitating and providing media commentary on news panels and forums. Ms Keefe is also a long standing Board Director of Breast Cancer Care WA.
Ms Allanah Lucas
First Appointed 2007
Term (Ex Officio)
Allanah Lucas is the Director General of the Department of Culture and the Arts. She has over 25 years experience as a professional arts administrator, a performing arts producer, presenter and practitioner, researcher, consultant, and tutor. In the past eight years Ms Lucas has worked within the Culture and Arts Portfolio, as the Director of ArtsWA, Acting Director of the WA Museum in 2004 and then as Executive Director, Development and Strategy. She has a Bachelor of Arts, Diploma of Education and MA in Arts Administration.
Councillor Giuseppe (Joe) Marino
First appointed 2004
Term ends 2015
Joe Marino is an accountant and is currently Manager, Accounts Receivable and Policy with the Department of Finance. He has a close association with the State Library having established and worked as Manager of the Arts Portfolio Bureau Services from 1996-97. Councillor Marino has been a City of Swan Councillor from 1997-99, then 2001 to the present, and is a Board Member on several not-for-profit organisations, notably Global Care a provider of aged care facilities. He is a Fellow with the Institute of Public Accountants.
Councillor Kaye McGlew
First appointed 2012
Term ends 2016
Kaye McGlew works with Regional Development Australia, providing support to young people who have disengaged or are at risk of disengaging from education prior to the completion of Year 12. She is a Councillor with the Shire of Dandaragan, and Chairperson of the Dandaragan Community Resource Centre.
Mr Michael Murray
First appointed 2004
Term ends 2017
Mike Murray is a former international management consultant specialising in strategy and performance improvement. After two decades of helping a wide range of complex organisations both locally and overseas he recently moved away from the consulting profession. In a complete career change he now runs a successful genealogical and historical research business.
An avid reader and a member of a number of local libraries, his interests embrace genealogy, history, politics, the sciences, music, writing and film-making. Mr Murray has business and accounting qualifications and in an earlier life was a senior executive in the WA mining industry.
Page last updated: Wednesday 19 December 2012
