Marjorie Cotton Isherwood (1913–2003) was the first professionally qualified children's librarian in New South Wales and many of her initiatives continue today. Having spent ten years as a teacher in South Australia, Cotton sat the children's librarianship paper the year it was introduced by the new NSW library school in 1949. At that time the only professional library service for children was in a corner of the City of Sydney Public Library in the Queen Victoria Building. Appointed librarian at Ku-ring-gai Municipal Library, Cotton determined to combine the professional resources of the QVB library with the warm approach of volunteer staff at the Mosman one. Scouring second-hand bookshops to build the collection, she introduced weekly story time, liaised with schools and stocked titles for children in languages other than English, a precious resource for families who had escaped from wartime Europe. Later, as Deputy and Children's Librarian at Newcastle, she set up a Central Children's Library. Cotton was also involved in Children's Book Week, and the establishment of a mobile children's library service while she was Deputy and Children's Librarian in Randwick from 1953 to 1960, a Bookmobile that operated from a grandstand at Kensington Oval. Cotton became the first President of the Children's Libraries Section of the Library Association of Australia and pioneered the first course in Children's Librarianship at the Mosman Municipal Library. She wrote a section of Maurice Saxby's History of Australian Children's Literature, and persuaded Desmond Digley to create a prize-winning picture book based on Waltzing Matilda. Throughout her career Cotton emphasised that staff should understand children and actually read their books. Of her time as Children's Librarian at Woollahra from 1959 to 1968, she recalled: 'The beautiful setting, in a harbourside garden, created a friendly intimacy of readers and staff, parents and children … doors were never closed until the children's needs were satisfied.' The Marjorie Cotton Award for Children's Librarianship was established in the late 1980s.
