Brian Campbell Vickery (

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

, Australia, 11 September 1918 – 17 October 2009) was a British

information scientist The term information scientist developed in the latter part of the twentieth century by Wm. Hovey Smith to describe an individual, usually with a relevant subject degree (such as one in Information and Computer Science - CIS) or high level of subjec ...

and classification researcher, and Professor and director at the School of Library, Archive and Information Studies at

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

from 1973 to 1983.

Biography

Vickery was born in

in Australia, where his father Adam McCay was working as journalist, and his uncle James Whiteside McCay was an Australian general and later politician. Vickery went to schools in Australia,

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

in Egypt, and

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the county of Kent, England; it was a county borough until 1974. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. The city has a mild oceanic climat ...

in England. He received his MA in Chemistry from

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

in 1941. He started his career as plant chemist in the

explosives An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An exp ...

factory of the Royal Ordnance in Bridgwater, Somerset in 1941. In 1945 he married Manuletta McMenamin. After the war he was assistant editor of the ''Industrial Chemist'' review in London, England, for one year. In 1946 he started his career as librarian at the Akers Research Laboratories of the Imperial Chemical Industries in Welwyn, Hertfordshire, England, where he worked until 1960. Here he started writing about

library science Library and information science (LIS)Library and Information Sciences is the name used in the Dewey Decimal Classification for class 20 from the 18th edition (1971) to the 22nd edition (2003). are two interconnected disciplines that deal with info ...

, which resulted in a series of books. In 1960 he became principal scientific officer at the UK National Lending Library for Science and Technology in

Boston Spa Boston Spa is a village and civil parish in the Leeds Metropolitan District in West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a Metropolitan counties of England, metropolitan and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and th ...

in Yorkshire, and from 1964 to 1966 he was librarian at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology in

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

. In 1967 he married Alina Vickery. From 1966 to 1973 he was research director at Aslib in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, and finally from 1973 to 1983 he was professor and director, School of Library, Archive and Information Studies, University College London. After 1983, as professor emeritus of the University of London, he remained active as part-time consultant and kept writing.

Works

Vickery wrote a series of books about library science and related subjectsSupplement to Bibliography of Vickery's publications. In: ''A long search for information, Occasional Paper 213'', Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2004. A selection: * 1953. Recent Trends in Special Libraries, 1953 * 1958. Classification and Indexing in Science, eds. 1958, 1959, 1975 * 1960. Faceted Classification, 1960 * 1960. The National Lending Library for Science and Technology, 1960 * 1961. On Retrieval System Theory, eds. 1961, 1965 * 1966. Faceted Classification Schemes, 1966 * 1970. Techniques of Information Retrieval, 1970 * 1971. Computer Support for Parliamentary Information Service (with H.East), 1971 * 1973. Information Systems, 1973 * 1978. The Use of Online Search in Teaching, 1978 * 1982. Information System Dynamics (with R.G.Heseltine), 1982 * 1987. Information Science in Theory and Practice (with A.Vickery), eds. 1987, 1992, 2004 * 1991. Intelligent Intermediary System: reference functional model, 1991 * 1993. Online Search Interface Design (with A.Vickery), 1993 * 2000. Scientific Communication in History, 2000 * 2004. A Long Search for Information, 2004

References

External links

*
Professor Brian Vickery 1918 - 2009
at iskouk.blogspot, 2010
Remembering a Colleague: Brian Vickery
2010 {{DEFAULTSORT:Vickery, Brian Campbell 1918 births 2009 deaths British information theorists Historians of libraries

Biography

Works

See also

References

External links