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

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

in the year 1938.

Early life

Sayers was born in

Mitcham Mitcham is an area within the London Borough of Merton in South London, England. It is centred southwest of Charing Cross. Originally a village in the county of Surrey, today it is mainly a residential suburb, and includes Mitcham Common. It h ...

, Surrey on 23 December 1881.

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 Croydon is a large town in south London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a local government district of Greater London. It is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater London, with an extensi ...

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". He also set up libraries in hospitals and schools in the county. He was successful in convincing the local council to provide a generous budget and his libraries gained an international reputation for their high standards. 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" on

library classification A library classification is a system of organization of knowledge by which library resources are arranged and ordered systematically. Library classifications are a notational system that represents the order of topics in the classification and al ...

, and served as a long-term editor of the journal ''Library World''. He was also a personal friend of musician

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (15 August 18751 September 1912) was a British composer and conductor. Of mixed-race birth, Coleridge-Taylor achieved such success that he was referred to by white New York musicians as the "African Mahler" when ...

, and after Coleridge-Taylor's untimely death in 1912, Coleridge-Taylor's widow asked Sayers to become his biographer.

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. * ''A Manual of Classification for Librarians & Bibliographers'', London: Grafton & Co., 1926, 2nd ed. 1944. * ''A Manual of Children's Libraries'', Allen & Unwin, 1932. * ''An Introduction to Library Classification'', London, Grafton & Co., 1935. * ''Library Local Collections'', Allen & Unwin, 1938.Review of ''Library Local Collections'': Jackson E. Towne (1939), ''The Library Quarterly'',

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.

References

External links

Sayers, W. C. Berwick (William Charles Berwick) 1881-1960

Collection AR1011 - W.C. Berwick Sayers Collection

Painting of W. C. Berwick Sayers
British librarians 1881 births 1960 deaths {{DEFAULTSORT:Sayers, W.C. Berwick