Universiti Malaya Library

Narrator

Mrs. Khoo Siew Mun

Mrs Khoo Siew Mun was born on February 5, 1938 and currently resides in Petaling Jaya, Selangor. She graduated with BA (Hons) in 1961 and then pursued her postgraduate studies and graduated with MEcons in 1968. Mrs Khoo was the Chief Librarian of University of Malaya from 12th October 1984 to 5th February 1993. It was her vision to establish the University of Malaya Library as a premier research and teaching library in Malaysia via palpable evidence of excellent library service and innovation. She considered the following as her most important contributions to the library :
• Coordinated efforts to solve some really troublesome problems

• Helped the UM administration to accept that postgraduate professional training is a right of the staff; and a need for good professional library service thereby initiating postgraduate programs for librarians to pursue studies abroad and thus instilling self-confidence in professional librarians so that they know they are on par with international library staff expertise in different parts of the world.

• Established a firm esprit de corps among the staff, making it possible to undertake a variety of major services for the UM community, while enjoying working together

Experience

She started her career at UM as a research assistant at the Economics Department followed by a tutor at the same department from 1963 to 1965. Then she worked as an Editor at the UM Press until 1967. From 1967 to 1975, she was the Bibliography, Documentation & Publications Assistant at the Faculty of Economy before becoming the Deputy Librarian from 1975 to 1984. She then became the Chief Librarian from 1984 to 1993.