After six years of war service, I rejoined Ilford Public Library service in 1946, and set about completing my F.L.A., begun in 1940. This service had… - Douglas John Foskett

consists in an analysis of a subject in its entirety into a certain number of facets or categories of things; within each category, the subject headings enumerated all possess the same relationship vis-&-vis the subject in its entirety.

Most librarians of his age were bookmen, who loved the touch, the appearance and the smell of books, and who often formed their own collections. Douglas fitted that description; we were all proud to be called ‘Librarians’. Perhaps modern information professionals are similarly inspired by the computer and the world-wide web. But the 1970s was a decade when computer technologies were assuming ever-growing importance for the future of libraries, and Douglas Foskett, as much as anyone, anticipated their value and fostered their introduction. He had already written extensively on classification, and had been a founder member of a special Classification Group. Such publications as ‘Classification and indexing in the social sciences’ and ‘Science, humanism and libraries’, which appeared in the 1960s are still important texts today, despite the vast deluge of literature on information management which has been published since. Of course, times and practices have changed radically in university libraries in the past twenty-five years, with the explosion of technology, and the continuous growth in all digital products and services. There have also been changes in social attitudes and in the approach to work. For example, when Douglas, in his final post, introduced the first computer system (GEAC) in the University of London Library, the junior staff went on strike! Such a response would be unthinkable today.

The aim of an information service is to organise the literature on a systematic basis in order to save the time of research workers.