As a young librarian working for the State Library, Ruth was seconded to the Science Museum of Victoria Library. A lifelong fascination with museums developed from this, and she undertook a Graduate Diploma of Museum Studies. After a short stint working on a council local history project, Ruth became a researcher on the Story of Victoria exhibition in 1984. This led to work as the Registrar for the Science and Technology Division. In this role she worked at Scienceworks after 2001. Eventually, Ruth became the Manager of the History & Technology Collections.
Ruth worked on the very early versions of the Museum’s database, and she was involved in the development of the EMu database management system.
In 1994, Ruth undertook a 4 month staff exchange with Jenny Wetton, then a Curator at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester.
Committees
Ruth was on the Council of the Australasian Registrars’ Committee for many years. Currently she is on the Heritage and Collections Sub-Committee of the Museum of Australian Chinese History, and the Roslyn Lawry Award Committee at Deakin University (Museum Studies).