W. C. Berwick Sayers Explained

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

As editor

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. James G.. Olle. 10.1.1.850.6334. W.C. Berwick Sayers, librarian and teacher. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science. 13. 4. October 1981. 232–247. 10.1177/096100068101300403. 144041642.
  2. https://museumofcroydoncollections.com/catalogues/index.php/further-records-of-w-c-berwick-sayers Collection AR1011 - W.C. Berwick Sayers Collection
  3. "A Word for the Lowbrow", The Guardian, 17 August 1938, p. 8.
  4. Web site: Sayers and Donker Duyvis . nopr.niscair.res.in.
  5. W. A. Munford, A History of the Library Association 1877-1977, London: The Library Association, 1976, p. 129.
  6. News: Sutton & Croydon Guardian. The sound of dignity. 29 July 2004. Kerry. McQueeney.
  7. Reviews of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Musician: The Musical Times (1916),, ; The Crisis (1916), https://books.google.com/books?id=Wb8RAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA293; J. R. Davis, The Journal of Negro History (1916),,
  8. Reviews of A Manual of Classification for Librarians and Bibliographers: Henry Bartlett Van Hoesen (1945), The Library Quarterly,, Ruth French Strout (1956), The Library Quarterly,
  9. Reviews of A Manual of Children's Libraries: Mary Duncan Carter (1933), The Library Quarterly, ; Vittorio Camerani (1932), La Bibliofilía, ; H. Lemaître (1932), Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes, ; Gloria Escamilla G. (1969), Boletín del Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas, http://publicaciones.iib.unam.mx/publicaciones/index.php/boletin/article/view/175/167
  10. Reviews of An Introduction to Library Classification: Henry E. Bliss (1936), The Library Quarterly, ; Vittorio Camerani (1935), La Bibliofilía,
  11. Review of Library Local Collections: Jackson E. Towne (1939), The Library Quarterly,