Comment

Abstract

I SUPPOSE that members of most library staffs are generously prepared to regard their chief librarians as eccentric. In these days of corporate management, group responsibility and participation we must expect, of course, to find the eccentricity more evenly spread. But be they few or be they many, eccentric librarians are not necessarily inefficient; they may be both competent and conscientious. If, however, they seem interested to excess in some small aspect of their responsibilities or if, alternatively, they have unusual habits which may modify or interfere with their performance, then they may be regarded as eccentric. I remember the public librarian who seemed to spend many of his working hours making and repairing the library furniture in a well‐equipped workshop in the basement. I remember the university librarian of whom a member of his staff once said to me ‘That man turns the loss of a char‐woman's duster into Greek tragedy!’ I remember another university librarian who took absurdly exaggerated personal interest in the quality of the packing used by other libraries when returning to him books which had been borrowed through a regional scheme. Then there was the classic case of Richard Porson at the London Institution. But his drinking problem made him inefficient as well as eccentric.

Citation

Munford, W., Houghton, B., Barnett, G. and Howes, B. (1978), "Comment", New Library World, Vol. 79 No. 8, pp. 145-149. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb038408