Douglas John Foskett

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(27 June 1918 – 7 May 2004) was a British librarian and

library and information scientist A library and information scientist, also known as a library scholar, is a researcher or academic who specializes in the field of library and information science and often participates in scholarly writing about and related to library and informat ...

, and author of several special

faceted classification A faceted classification is a classification scheme used in organizing knowledge into a systematic order. A faceted classification uses semantic categories, either general or subject-specific, that are combined to create the full classification ent ...

systems. Foskett was born in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

on 27 June 1918. He received his BA from

Queen Mary College Queen Mary University of London (QMUL, or informally QM, and previously Queen Mary and Westfield College) is a public university, public research university in Mile End, East London, England. It is a member institution of the federal University of ...

in 1939 and in 1954 his MA at

Birkbeck, University of London , mottoeng = Advice comes over nightTranslation used by Birkbeck. , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £4.3 m (2014) , budget = £10 ...

. He started his career in the late 1930s as a librarian in the Ilford Public Libraries in

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

. During World War II he served in the

Royal Army Medical Corps The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all Army personnel and their families, in war and in peace. The RAMC, the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, the Royal Army Dental Corps a ...

and later in the Intelligence Corps. From 1948 to 1957 he was Head of Information in the Research Division of the Metal Box Company Limited. In 1957 to 1978 he was at the Library of the

Institute of Education IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society (IOE) is the education school of University College London (UCL). It specialises in postgraduate study and research in the field of education and is one of UCL's 11 constituent faculties. Prior to m ...

in London, where he devised and implemented the specialist London Education Classification scheme to organize the library's collections. The last five years before retirement he was Director at the Central Library Services of the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

.Robert Wedeworth (1993) ''World Encyclopedia of library and information services''. p. 299 In the early 1950s Foskett was among the founding members of the

Classification Research Group The Classification Research Group (CRG) was a significant contributor to classification research and theory in the field of library and information science in the latter half of the 20th century. It was formed in England in 1952 and was active until ...

. He was active member of British

Library Association The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, since 2017 branded CILIP: The library and information association (pronounced ), is a professional body for librarians, information specialists and knowledge management, knowle ...

. For 5 years he was a member of Unesco's International Advisory Committee on Libraries, Documentation and Archives. Also visiting Professor in MIT, in Ghana, Ibadan, Brazil and Iceland. His brother, Tony (1926–2014), was also a librarian and teacher of information science.

Publications

Books, a selection: * 1952. ''Assistance to readers in lending libraries'' * 1958. ''Library Classification and the Field of Knowledge'' * 1965. ''How to Find Out: Educational Research'' * 1967. ''Information service in libraries'' * 1974. ''Classification and indexing in the social sciences'' * 1974. ''The London Education Classification'' (with Joy Foskett) * 1977. ''Notes on Compiling Bibliographies: For the Guidance of Students'' * 1980. ''Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science''. With A. Kent * 1983. ''Reader in Comparative Librarianship'' * 1984. ''Pathways for communication: books and libraries in the information age''

References

External links

Notes for: Douglas J Foskett
{{DEFAULTSORT:Foskett, Douglas John 1918 births 2004 deaths English librarians British information theorists Officers of the Order of the British Empire British Army personnel of World War II Royal Army Medical Corps soldiers Intelligence Corps soldiers