Very few people might ever of heard of James Duff Brown ,
but his impact upon just how we use public libraries is
enormous.
Brown worked as a librarian in Camberwell before he
became the first Borough librarian for Islington.
His great innovation was to introduce ‘open access’ within
public libraries.
Previous to that ‘closed access’ meant that one had to
browse the library catalogue, and complete a form in order
for one of the library staff to fetch the book out from the
back.
Brown wrote upon various aspects of librarianship.
His Publications include:
A manual of practical bibliography.
Subject Classification.
&
British Musical Biography: A Dictionary of Musical Artists,
Authors, and Composers Born in Britain and Its Colonies.
Anyone who is interested in library history or library
cataloguing should find out more about his work.