Sylvia Beer

I was born In Lima, Peru and lived there until finishing high school. I then Univ of Queensland in Brisbane, where I completed a B.A in English and Psychology. I then moved to Canberra to do a Graduate Diploma in Librarianship. Back in Brisbane, I worked in the UQ Library for two years before resigning and going on a seven-month trip to N. Zealand, Tahiti and S. America, where I visited Peru, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico and Puerto Rico and then I arrived in Santo Domingo, Dominican Rep. in the Caribbean. I lived there for 12 years, where I worked as librarian for Central Bank of Dominican Rep and two universities (UNIBE and APEC).

While in Santo Domingo I was invited by the US Consulate to do a month-long trip to libraries (federal, state, public and private) in NYC, Washington,D.C, Baltimore, Chicago and San Francisco. On my return home, I started my own translating and desktop publishing business using computers. I visited Expo 88 in Brisbane and there met who was to become my husband two years later. We got married in 1990 and moved back to Brisbane, where my daughter came to the world in 1991, followed by her brother in 1993. In August the same year our family moved to live in Graz, the place where my husband was born and studied engineering.

In those nineteen years, the family were frequent travellers, visiting most European countries and islands, while my husband was busy working in Asia, South America and Middle East. In 2012 he became Professor Emeritus, but that did not stop him from going to international conferences, supervising PhD students and writing books. We bought a small flat in Nelson Bay and the two of us are now happily retired in Nelson Bay, NSW!