Douglas John Foskett OBE (27 June 1918 – 7 May 2004) was a British librarian and library and information scientist, 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 ...

systems.

Early life and career

Foskett was born in London on 27 June 1918. He received his BA from Queen Mary College in 1939 and in 1954 his MA at

Birkbeck, University of London Birkbeck, University of London (formally Birkbeck College, University of London), is a Public university, public research university located in London, England, and a constituent college, member institution of the University of London. Establ ...

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

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

. During World War II he served in the

Royal Army Medical Corps The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) was a specialist corps in the British Army which provided medical services to all Army personnel and their families, in war and in peace. On 15 November 2024, the corps was amalgamated with the Royal Army De ...

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 The UCL Institute of Education (IOE) is the faculty of education and society 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 t ...

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-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

.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. He was active member of British

Library Association The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP, pronounced ) is a professional body for librarians, information specialists and knowledge managers in the United Kingdom. It was established in 2002 as a merger of th ...

. For 5 years he was a member of

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

'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