Derek Austin (11 August 1921 – 22 May 2001) was a

librarian A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users. The role of the librarian has changed much over time ...

and

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

Career

From 1963 to 1967, he was a Subject Editor at the ''

British National Bibliography The British National Bibliography (BNB) was established at the British Museum in 1949 to publish a list of the books, journals and serials that are published in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. It also includes information on forthcoming ...

''. He was also a developer of innovative digital cataloguing systems and the creator of the PRECIS indexing language in 1974, which was used worldwide and for the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

National Bibliography. "His aim was to create an indexing system that would liberate indexers from the constraints of 'relative significance' (main entries). ...As by-products of his indexing theories he worked out drafts that in the mid-1980s were accepted as British and International Standards for examining documents, and for establishing multilingual and monolingual thesauri". PRECIS was an example of the application of syntactical devices in indexing. It was replaced at the British National Biography by COMPASS in 1996, which was later replaced by

Library of Congress Subject Headings The Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) comprise a thesaurus (in the information science sense, a controlled vocabulary) of subject headings, maintained by the United States Library of Congress, for use in bibliographic records. LC Subject ...

. After 1974, Austin was head of the Subject System Office,

The British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

Awards

* 1976 Ranganathan Award, from FID/CR and the Documentation Research and Training Centre (Bangalore) * 1978 Margaret Mann Citation, from the

American Library Association The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members ...

* 1982 Received his Ph.D. from Sheffield University Austin was a

supernumerary Supernumerary means "exceeding the usual number". Supernumerary may also refer to: * Supernumerary actor, a performer in a film, television show, or stage production who has no role or purpose other than to appear in the background, more commonl ...

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

Harris Manchester College Harris Manchester College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It was founded in Warrington in 1757 as a college for Unitarian students and moved to Oxford in 1893. It became a full college of th ...

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. He was also a member of the Royal Corps of Signals from 1941–1946.

Published works

* *

Reviews of Austin's works

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Austin, Derek 1921 births 2001 deaths People educated at Enfield Grammar School English librarians British Army personnel of World War II Royal Corps of Signals soldiers

Career

Awards

Published works

Reviews of Austin's works

See also

References