Information Scotland

The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland

October 2006 Volume 4(5)

Obituary

Alan G. D. White 1938-2006

Alan White made a huge contribution to librarianship and made friends in the process. Educated at George Watson’s College, he worked briefly in the family motor business, then joined Edinburgh City Libraries in 1956, spending his whole career there. He worked as Branch Librarian, Scottish Librarian and Reference Librarian before becoming Depute City Librarian. He always retained an interest in branch libraries and enjoyed working with architects, designers and booksellers to build or restore a library; several libraries still testify to his flair.

It is for his contribution to our professional organisation that we owe Alan most. Throughout his career, he held office in the Scottish Library Association (SLA) and the Library Association (I adopt the terminology in force when Alan served), and was proud of what he called his “professional triple crown” – the presidency of the Association of Assistant Librarians (1972), the Scottish Library Association (1980) and the Library Association (1989). Elected an Honorary Member of SLA in 1977, he was also an Honorary Vice President of CILIPS.

Alan touched every part of professional life. For example: he ran the Scottish Summer School of Librarianship at Newbattle Abbey, ensuring it was fun, as well as instructive; he nurtured the SLA conference and exhibition; he edited SLA conference proceedings and SLA News, this journal’s predecessor. His contribution to the profession’s governance was massive and sustained; he served on and chaired countless committees and working parties, including the Councils of SLA and LA, and the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC). Concerned to improve relationships with government, he was a member of the LA’s Parliamentary Sub-committee and represented SLA at the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities.

Alan’s greatest achievement was his enhancement of the SLA’s intellectual and operational strength. Over many years, he helped it grow into a strategic organisation, able to formulate policy, communicate convincingly and deliver sound action plans. He didn’t do this alone, but was at the core of that group of people who built SLA into something greater than any branch, and SLIC into an advisory body that is respected and heeded. He engineered the establishment of the post of full-time Director of SLA and shares in the credit for the success of that office and the fruitful partnership between SLA and SLIC.

It wasn’t all success. LA and SLA work demanded much of his time and energy. “The day job” (his own phrase) benefited from his professional contacts and insights, but he did not become City Librarian of Edinburgh and was never a “chief librarian”. Characteristically, he did not allow his disappointment to show, or to affect his relationships with colleagues who were also rivals.

It wasn’t all serious, either. He told of organising a Scottish-Irish conference at a hotel where recent refurbishment had included a wholescale re-numbering of rooms – almost every door in the place was numbered. Afterwards, a distraught hotel manager wondered if Alan would stand surety for the Guinness and malt whisky charged to fire exits and broom cupboards!

Alan could work amicably and successfully with people from all roles: librarians, janitors, booksellers, furniture suppliers, civil servants, MPs, councillors. Delegates to meetings he attended would be persuaded to a pub, a restaurant, or his home at close of business, there to continue talking, theorising, debating. He was generous with his time and experience, and enjoyed turning colleagues into friends. He could put himself in the other person’s position, see things through the other’s eyes. In committee, he could steer issues through a maze of disparate views and produce a result that was both right and workable. He could turn his hand to virtually any task: drafting policy; briefing ministers; designing a library; building an exhibition stand; engrossing SLA’s certificates of honorary membership. He relished having resolved a mobile librarians’ dispute by showing that he could park the articulated vehicle better than they could – a skill developed as a youth in his family’s motor business.

The stroke that Alan suffered in 1993 left his intellect and ability to communicate unimpaired, but restricted his mobility. He retired and fashioned a new life around his family and friends. His active participation in the profession ceased, but his interest remained; he kept abreast of issues and developments. He developed his life-long interest in cars into an absorbing hobby-business, tracing and trading rare scale-model vehicles. He discovered the pleasures of long lunches (not difficult, given Brenda’s skill in cooking!), eating and talking with friends around the table far into the afternoon and evening.

Alan Grant Davidson White – “Agd”. No matter the circumstances, he was alwa ys himself, always the same Alan. In our friendship of 30 years, I never plumbed the depth of his experience and interests, never saw him at odds with the world. We remember him fondly and extend sympathy and support to his widow, Brenda, and their daughter, Patricia.

Rennie McElroy, formerly, Napier University Library

Alan White – a brief appreciation

There will be many fellow-Scots whose careers ran contemporaneously with Alan White’s and former leading members of the profession who came to know him as a senior figure in the councils of the then Library Association.

My own perspective is somewhat different, coming as I did, in 1973 a stranger to the Scottish library scene, after 25 years in the English library service. Even among the impressively hard-working and dedicated staff whom I found awaiting me in Edinburgh, Alan stood out as a person of unusual talents. I quickly marked him as a candidate f or early promotion and when the opportunity came, he fully justified my confidence in his abilities.

Alan’s energy and industry were remarkable, coupled with a technical ‘know-how’ extending well beyond the library. His professional zeal was exemplary and he never failed to astound me by his apparently encyclopedic knowledge, not only of Edinburgh’s numerous departments, but of the Scottish public library service. Alan could never resist a challenge, and though his determination often earned the gratitude of colleagues, his relentless pursuit of the ideal solution to every problem led on occasion to a somewhat intransigent perfectionism, when a touch of pragmatism would have better served the purpose.
Local government reorganisation and the subsequent vagaries of library administration in Edinburgh did Alan no favours and he failed to achieve the ultimate recognition which his outstanding qualities surely merited. It was a tragedy that ill-health prevented him from developing his career in other directions, at the same time robbing the profession of a practitioner whose competence and dedication I have rarely seen equalled.

Alan Howe, Former City Librarian and later head of Cultural Services, Edinburgh 1973-1990

Information Scotland Vol. 4(5) October 2006

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Last updated: 08-Dec-2006