William Charles Berwick Sayers (1881–1960) was a British librarian and teacher.[1] He was one of a "small but remarkable" group of librarians involved in public libraries in the early 20th century[2] and was President of the Library Association in the United Kingdom in the year 1938.[1][3]

Early life

Sayers was born in Mitcham, Surrey on 23 December 1881.[4]

Career

In 1896 Sayers began as a junior assistant at the Bournemouth Public Library and in 1904 he was appointed as deputy librarian, working under principal librarian Stanley Jast, at the Public Library in Croydon which then a small country town near south London.

In 1915, he became the chief librarian of the Croydon Public Library and under his leadership he introduced a library service for children and during the 1930s he opened several branch libraries. He made every library an arts centre with a "programme of lectures, recitals and exhibitions".[1] He also set up libraries in hospitals and schools in the country. He was successful in convincing the local council to provide a generous budget and his libraries gained an international reputation for their high standards.[1]

After the Second World War, during which he had been badly injured while serving as a Civil Defence controller, he retired from the Croydon Public Libraries.

Legacy

Sayers contributed in several areas of librarianship: he served in the Library Assistants' Association, contributed to children's librarianship, was a respected teacher and "an outstanding authority"[5] on library classification, and served as a long-term editor of the journal Library World.

He was also a personal friend of musician Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and after Coleridge-Taylor's untimely death in 1912, Coleridge-Taylor's widow asked Sayers to become his biographer.[6]

Bibliography

As author

  • The Grammar of Classification, Croydon, Central Library, 1912.
  • Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Musician. His Life and Letters, Cassell & Co., 1916, 2nd ed. 1927.[7]
  • A Manual of Classification for Librarians & Bibliographers, London: Grafton & Co., 1926, 2nd ed. 1944.[8]
  • A Manual of Children's Libraries, Allen & Unwin, 1932.[9]
  • An Introduction to Library Classification, London, Grafton & Co., 1935.[10]
  • Library Local Collections, Allen & Unwin, 1938.[11]

As editor

  • James Duff Brown, Manual of Library Economy, 5th ed. Revised by W. C. Berwick Sayers. London, Grafton, 1931.
  • Books for Youth: A Classified and Annotated Guide for Young Readers, London, Library Association, 1936.

Further reading

  • D.J. Foskett and B.I. Palmer, eds., The Sayers Memorial Volume, London: Library Association, 1961; ISBN 9780598068927
  • Munford, W. A., A History of The Library Association, 1877-1977, London: The Library Association, 1976; ISBN 9780853654889
  • Ranganathan, S.R., "Sayers and Donker Duyvis: Theory and Manner of Library Classification", Annals of Library Science, 8(3) September 1961, 85-99.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Olle, James G. (October 1981). "W.C. Berwick Sayers, librarian and teacher". Journal of Librarianship and Information Science. 13 (4): 232–247. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.850.6334. doi:10.1177/096100068101300403. S2CID 144041642.
  2. ↑ Collection AR1011 - W.C. Berwick Sayers Collection, museumofcroydoncollections.com. Retrieved on 23 September 2020.
  3. ↑ "A Word for the Lowbrow", The Guardian, 17 August 1938, p. 8.
  4. ↑ "Sayers and Donker Duyvis" (PDF). nopr.niscair.res.in.
  5. ↑ W. A. Munford, A History of the Library Association 1877-1977, London: The Library Association, 1976, p. 129.
  6. ↑ McQueeney, Kerry (29 July 2004). "The sound of dignity". Sutton & Croydon Guardian.
  7. ↑ Reviews of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Musician: The Musical Times (1916), doi:10.2307/908929, JSTOR 908929; The Crisis (1916), ; J. R. Davis, The Journal of Negro History (1916), doi:10.2307/3035618, JSTOR 3035618
  8. ↑ Reviews of A Manual of Classification for Librarians and Bibliographers: Henry Bartlett Van Hoesen (1945), The Library Quarterly, JSTOR 4303392, Ruth French Strout (1956), The Library Quarterly, JSTOR 4304539
  9. ↑ Reviews of A Manual of Children's Libraries: Mary Duncan Carter (1933), The Library Quarterly, JSTOR 4301947; Vittorio Camerani (1932), La Bibliofilía, JSTOR 26209598; H. Lemaître (1932), Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes, JSTOR 43009373; Gloria Escamilla G. (1969), Boletín del Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas,
  10. ↑ Reviews of An Introduction to Library Classification: Henry E. Bliss (1936), The Library Quarterly, JSTOR 4302241; Vittorio Camerani (1935), La Bibliofilía, JSTOR 26209831
  11. ↑ Review of Library Local Collections: Jackson E. Towne (1939), The Library Quarterly, JSTOR 4302651
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