Information Scotland The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland ISSN 1743-5471 Issue contents | Journal contents | About the online edition of the journal December 2005 Volume 3 (6)

Obituaries

Gordon McCrae, 1947-2005

Gordon was educated at Paisley’s John Neilston Institution and two years in the South at Kingston College of Further Education before taking a degree in archaeology at Liverpool University. Following a postgraduate course in librarianship at the Robert Gordon College in Aberdeen, his library career took in posts at Paisley, Motherwell and Cumbernauld public libraries and Falkirk Technical College (where he met Isobel whom he married). Then in 1980 he arrived back in his home town, as Acquisitions Librarian at the then Paisley College Library, and served the town and the Library assiduously right up to his untimely death. In 1989 he was appointed one of three Depute Librarians at a staff restructuring following the retirement of Hamish Maclachlan. He had already taken supervisory responsibility for our automated system and later, with the departure of Carole Munro for Aberdeen University Library, he added responsibility for circulation too.

He brought a breath of fresh air to Paisley: he questioned everything we did and how we did it. He was not afraid to suggest radical changes, and even more importantly, to see those changes carried through in practice. Gordon never took anything, or anybody, at face value. He brought efficiency and value for money to Paisley College Library long before they ever became buzz words: he was of that generation which had been brought up to account for every penny of public money. Of course, that could have its down side too: I often argued with him that he should use trains (or even airlines) for his professional trips South on the grounds that his absence cost as much as the fare he was saving. But his frugal way with Library funds kept him using coaches, until that is his return from a trip South with the story of two drivers of his coach swapping places in the driving seat at 70mph in the fast lane of the M6. After that it was the train.

Gordon was well known on various technical committees both in Scotland and more widely: his presence on them ensured that they would approach their business in practical and realistic terms, but also with great good humour. For many years he served on the National Acquisitions Group in his capacity as editor of its journal Taking Stock, in addition to the user groups of the Library’s automated systems (previously BookshelF, latterly Talis) and technical committees, including Scolcap.

His wider interests sometimes overlapped with his professional life: entertainer as Mr. Bones at parties for the children of colleagues both in Paisley and more widely, or as accordion player in his Bum Note ceilidh band. Any such occasion was enlivened by his presence, invariably to the point of hilarity if not outright riot. But behind the fun and the excitement there was an excellent musician, and an expert puppeteer, the inheritor and preserver of an ancient tradition. The other side of Gordon was to take those traditions very seriously and study them with long-held deep and expert scholarship. In that spirit he took an M.Phil at Strathclyde University with a study of the songs of Lady Nairne. He also wrote a book on puppetry techniques, among other publications.

In that same spirit too, Gordon was, through his education, inclination and pride in his home town and county, a local historian of the first significance. We have lost a walking encyclopaedia of Paisley and Renfrewshire history, the man I frequently went to with questions about buildings or incidents I had noticed, and who never failed for a full answer. He served with the Renfrewshire Local History Forum and was hugely valued by every local history society, and just about every local historian, across Renfrewshire. His generous input to other people’s researches was incalculable.

To one extent this activity culminated in a Renfrewshire local history and archaeology course run through the University of Paisley’s Lifelong Learning Department. Fully subscribed in its first two years, it had attracted almost the same number of students for the third year which began just a week before Gordon’s death. Gordon delivered this course jointly with the Paisley Museum, but it was largely his work, and his classes were delivered in the usual Gordon McCrae fashion. This reflected the many talks he gave around Paisley and more widely, all with his unique character: the impromptu accordion tunes and sing-alongs, or the passing round of tins of sweeties (soor plums were Gordon’s favourite).

Gordon McCrae the man has already emerged from these accounts, but there was so much more to him that we will cherish and remember. An energetic, forceful when need be, manager, a man who never suffered fools gladly, Gordon still always had a deep concern for all the people he dealt with, whether colleagues, staff, or Library users, even chief librarians: he might argue that something I was asking him to do was a waste of time (and I often enough agreed with him), but when I explained that we were labouring under force majeure I knew I could rely on his complete support; more particularly that I could rely on him getting things done, for he was one of the most practical colleagues I have ever known. He saved the Library enormous sums, and me much time and anguish, by bright ideas or by make do and mend. ‘Can-do’ people or lateral thinkers: Gordon was these, and more, long before they got fashionable names.

But especially it is the humour we will remember: the mockery of red tape and humbug, the recounting of frequently hilarious anecdotes, and the jokes against himself. There is so much to remember, some of it of a distinctly politically incorrect, but never malicious, nature: his bemusement at being asked to supply a risk assessment for a punch and judy show; his return from music or puppetry engagements with anecdotes about the goings-on; the story from NAG that we can picture so well of Gordon and the soup in the Thai restaurant; the colleagues across various libraries kept in stitches by his impromptu performances or narratives.

All of that we are now missing in this one man: the immensely able and ever practical professional librarian, but who bedded his practicality in a grasp of professional theory and ethics; the servant of the University of Paisley who did so much both to maintain the highest standards of library service and to promote the University to the wider community; the manager and the innovator; the musician and entertainer; the scholar; but above all warm and humorous friend. Colleagues and friends across Scotland and across the profession have lost a unique and irreplaceable friend. He is widely mourned but will be long remembered, by his own and almost every other generation from youngest to oldest.

The deepest loss must be his family’s: we offer our heartfelt condolences to his widow Isobel and his two sons, Ross and Alastair.

Stuart James
University of Paisley

Information Scotland Vol. 3 (6) December 2005

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