Kerrie Burn was appointed as the inaugural University Librarian in March 2023 and has managed the University’s online Library Hub, since it was launched in February 2016. She was the Library Manager at Mannix Library, Catholic Theological College in East Melbourne from 2014 to March 2024.

Kerrie worked previously in theological libraries in Melbourne (Ridley and Whitley Colleges) and has held library and research support roles in the Australian university sector (Southern Cross University and Australian Catholic University). She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree and a Graduate Diploma in Library and Information Studies from the University of Melbourne. In July 2018 she was admitted to Distinguished Certified Professional membership of the Australian Library and Information Association – AFALIA (DCP).

Kerrie completed a Master of Arts by Research in 2007 through the then Melbourne College of Divinity. Her thesis title was The Australian Baptist Heritage Collection: Management of a Geographically Distributed Special Collection. Kerrie was a team member on the Australian Research Council-funded Discovery Project (DP 170100426), A Baroque Archbishop in Colonial Australia: James Alipius Goold, 1812-1886. She has research and publication interests in the areas of theological libraries, collaborative collection development, the management of library special collections, and addressing knowledge and gender gaps on Wikipedia. Kerrie was elected to membership of the Atla (American Theological Library Association) Board of Directors for 2020-2023 in January 2020 and re-elected for a second term in 2023. She was previously a member of Atla’s International Theological Librarianship Education Task Force, which produced resources and provided professional development opportunities for theological librarians working in countries with developing economies. She was the Chair of the University’s Library Committee from 2014-2021 and is a former member of the University’s Library Taskforce and the Gender and Theology Taskforce.

Kerrie initiated the Australian Women in Religion Wikipedia project at the University of Divinity in 2019 and leads Australia’s contribution to the international Women in Religion Project. The project aims to raise up the unrecognised work of important women in religion and to help address the gender bias on platforms like Wikipedia where only about 18% of biographical articles and 10% of editors are women.

Kerrie was an inaugural winner of a Wikidata Fellowship awarded by Wikimedia Australia in March 2022. She also received a $10,000 Wikimedia Australia Project Partner project grant in 2023, to support the AWR project and enable the University to employ a Wikimedian-in-Residence.

University Appointments

External Affiliations

• Atla (American Theological Library Association) (Member, Board of Directors)
• Australian and New Zealand Theological Library Association (Member)
• Australian Library and Information Association (Member)
• American Academy of Religion (Member)
• Wikimedia Australia (Member)
• WikiProject Women in Red (Member)