A biography of Maurice Line

Citation

Pilling, S. (2005), "A biography of Maurice Line", Interlending & Document Supply, Vol. 33 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ilds.2005.12233baf.005

A biography of Maurice Line

I first met Maurice Line in late 1979, not long after having joined the British Library Lending Division – as it then was – where he was director. My contact with him was initially fairly infrequent, but over the years I came to know him better from meetings, from his copious writings and conference papers, and from his regular staff “tea-parties”.

During the years I worked for him I never really knew very much about Maurice’s personal and professional background and it is only more recently that I have begun to learn more about his life and his career. So … a few facts.

Maurice was born in 1928 and attended Bedford School from 1939 to 1947. He went on to read English language and literature at Exeter College, Oxford, obtaining his MA in 1954. His library career began in 1950 when he became a trainee for a year at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, before moving north in 1951 to become a library assistant at Glasgow University for three years. He then moved south again to take up the post of Sub-Librarian at Southampton University Library, staying there till 1965. From 1965-1968 he held the post of Deputy Librarian at Newcastle-upon-Tyne University and in 1968 he became University Librarian at Bath. During his time at Bath, the Library was moved into a new building and it is said that Maurice bribed students to help move books by offering to buy each volunteer a pint of beer!

In 1971 Maurice became a member of the body carrying out the preliminary planning for the British Library and was also involved in a study of the potential for automation in the BL. At this time he also moved out of the university library sector to become the Librarian of the National Central Library. The NCL had started life in 1916 as the Central Library for Students, becoming the National Central Library in 1931. Originally the NCL was a library concerned with supplying books to adults and students who could not reach a public library. Later it developed into a national clearing-house for interlibrary lending, and became part of the newly formed British Library in 1973, when its collections were moved to West Yorkshire. Maurice moved with the NCL and from 1974 to 1985 he held the post of Director-General, British Library Lending Division, on the retirement of Donald Urquhart. From 1985 till 1988 he was Director-General of the British Library’s Science, Technology and Industry Directorate from 1985 till 1988, when he retired.

For the next 12 years Maurice worked as a consultant specialising in the management of change, and advising organisations in many parts of the world. He carried out over 50 consultancies in 16 different countries and visited more than 40 countries in a professional context. Amidst this globe-trotting, however, his interest in the education of future librarians also continued undiminished in his capacity as Professor Associate at Sheffield University’s Department of Information Science, and as External Professor at Loughborough University’s Department of Information and Library Studies.

During the course of his long career, Maurice has been awarded a number of honours. Heriot-Watt University awarded him an Honorary D. Litt. in 1980; Southampton University awarded him an Honorary D. Sc. in 1988; he became a Fellow of Birmingham Polytechnic in 1992 and was awarded the Medal of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) in 1990. He is also a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute and a Fellow and an Honorary Fellow of CILIP. His contribution to the world of librarianship was recognised in 1990 when he was elected President of the Library Association.

Maurice’s library career has been devoted to making libraries much more user-focused and over the years he has conducted many studies and led numerous programmes aimed at making libraries more accessible and easier to use. He was a great believer in designing libraries around human beings. Some of us might recall from library school days Ranganathan’s Five Laws of Library Science, which were published in 1931 – Maurice turned them on their heads to describe what he believed to be the reality of too many libraries:S.R. Ranganathan:

1. 1.

   books are for use;

2. 2.

   every reader his or her book;

3. 3.

   every book its reader;

4. 4.

   save the time of the reader;

5. 5.

   a library is a growing organism.

Maurice B. Line:

1. 1.

   books are for collecting;

2. 2.

   some readers their books;

3. 3.

   some books their readers;

4. 4.

   waste the time of the reader;

5. 5.

   the library is a growing mausoleum.

He was particularly interested in redesigning catalogues, but other topics such as citation analysis, the problems of music documentation, the information needs of social scientists and obsolescence in scientific literature all captured his interest, as can be seen from the lengthy list of his publications. Even the most cursory of glances is enough to show the immense range and diversity of his professional involvement. His very first journal article appeared in the Library Association Record in 1952: “A classified catalogue of music scores: some problems”. His first book was A Bibliography of Russian Literature in English Translation to 1900, published in 1963 by the Library Association. From that point onwards Maurice’s written output has not stopped. Some of his 420 journal articles have fascinating titles – a few of my favourites include:

• •

  On the construction and care of white elephants;

• •

  White elephants revisited;

• •

  Some notes on book stealing;

• •

  How golden is your retriever?;

• •

  Ignoring the user: how, when and why;

• •

  The shoulders of giants, or the backs of mice?;

• •

  How to demotivate staff: a brief guide;

• •

  The bonfire of the author’s vanity;

• •

  Chaos, strategy and planning: can they be reconciled?;

• •

  The loneliness of the long-distance information ranger;

• •

  Does low pay have to be associated with high boredom?

• •

  Extracting pearls from rotten oysters …

… and the list could go on.

The titles themselves make you want to read – and reread – the articles. I have always admired Maurice’s prose style – spare and concise, humorous and to the point. In my view his outstanding ability to express himself clearly on the page makes him an excellent role-model for present day and future library professionals, brought up as so many are in a world where grammar and punctuation are disregarded and where jargon and sloppiness rule.

Now finally retired, Maurice remains as intellectually alert as ever, and he continues to read extensively, with occasional forays into print in the form of letters to the local paper. The points he makes are always worth listening to, even if one does not agree with them, and his wide-ranging and eclectic interests can put lesser mortals to shame. Colleagues who, over the years, had the opportunity to work alongside Maurice, will not forget his boundless energy and professional commitment to improving the library experience for users. Maurice is a one-off and, as the saying goes, when they made Maurice they broke the mould!

Stella Pilling