Former Deputy Librarian Ian Jackson sadly passed away aged 67 on Tuesday, 24th October.
Ian started work for the University Library in 1978, after reading English at Exeter University, completing postgraduate study at Aberystwyth, and working in Exeter City Libraries. Although his initial appointment was to the cataloguing section, he soon moved into Reader Services, where he was to remain for most of his career. From 1987 to 1990 he was the Head of Reader Services in the Sydney Jones Library; and in 1990 he became Head of User Services for the whole Library.
After the retirement of Frances Thompson, in October 2003, Ian held the post of Acting University Librarian until the arrival of Phil Sykes in 2004. In 2006 he was made Deputy Librarian, the post he stayed in until his retirement in 2012.
Ian believed that the University Library was pivotal to scholarship. He saw it not simply as a place that supplies information to its immediate clientele, but as the embodiment of the cultural values of the University in its commitment to making the fruits of scholarship available to as wide a readership as possible. He also recognized the importance of the Library’s role in preserving the history and the cultural treasures of the University for future generations.
However, his commitment to a view of the Library’s purposes with which earlier generations of librarians and scholars would have felt comfortable went hand in hand with a strongly modernizing instinct in relation to staffing and staff development; and he worked enthusiastically with colleagues in Human Resources to ensure that our processes for recruiting and rewarding staff are as fair as they can be.
Ian was exceptionally well read and had a breadth of cultural sympathies that was an asset to him in his library role. His occasionally mischievous sense of humour, well laced with irony, and his relish for the occasional absurdities of library and corporate life, made him an exceptionally entertaining conversationalist. His acute political instincts, good judgment, and accurate feel for the art of the possible, enabled him to steer change through successfully; and his genial manner made him popular with colleagues both in the Library and outside. He will be greatly missed by his son Alex, his friends and his former colleagues.
Ian’s funeral will be at 1.45pm on Wednesday, 15th November at West Lancs crematorium, Pippin St, Burscough L40 7SP.
It was a rare thing, Ian’s mixture of efficient quickness, always youthful light-heartedness and serious understanding: that, for me, was him and how I remember him now, with sadness.
I was genuinely upset to read this news. Ian was a long-term travelling companion of mine on the Northern Line, and, even at silly o’clock, was indeed an exceptionally entertaining conversationalist. He was a good and decent man and I am so sorry that he has not had the long and happy retirement which he deserved.