My friend and colleague Ian Gibb, who has died aged 91, played a key role in ensuring that the British Museum Library (BML) became a fully fledged part of the new British Library (BL).
Born in Eastbourne, East Sussex, and raised in London, he was the son of John Gibb, an engineering draughtsman, and his wife, Mary (nee Owen), who worked in a bank. On leaving Latymer Upper school, Hammersmith, he studied French and German at University College London, and after six years working in UCL’s library, he became deputy librarian of the National Central Library, an interlending agency supporting public and academic libraries.
In 1973 he moved to the Science Reference Library of the BL as deputy director, before receiving an urgent call in 1975. Donovan Richnell, his generation’s most influential academic librarian, had become the BL’s first London director general but found it difficult to bring some necessary modernising changes to the former BML. Don asked Ian to be his chief lieutenant.
In the following decade Ian contributed greatly to the development of the BL’s newspaper library, the Newsplan conservation programme, the publishing office and the establishment of a BL preservation service that looks after the care, conservation and repair of the library’s print and digital collections.
He also supported innovative projects such as the Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalogue, collating books, pamphlets and ephemera up to 1800. His overall responsibility for the national newspaper, map, music and stamp collections also gave him great satisfaction.
A succession of BL directors and a National Archives’ chief executive owed much to his encouragement of their careers. I worked for him from 1976 to 1986.
At UCL he met Patricia Butler, a fellow student on the graduate librarianship course. They married in 1953, and made their home ultimately in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire. Patricia became a librarian, working initially at King’s College London and from the 1970s in the Institute of Classical Studies at the University of London.
Retiring in 1987, Ian helped to create the Friends of the BL, was chair of Dacorum National Trust Association in Hertfordshire (1993-97), and continued his love of music, cricket and travel.
Patricia’s death in 1993 was a severe blow, but he took great pride in the achievements of his sons, Nicholas and Jeremy, and their families, and found later happiness with Mary Craddock-Jones, who became his partner for 20 years until her death last year.
A future evaluation of the BL will surely note how often Ian’s involvement in its early programmes led to their success. His reliability and acuteness over many years underpinned its achievements and as a counsellor and mentor of younger people he enriched other national institutions.
He is survived by Nicholas, Jeremy, his grandsons, Sam and James, and granddaughters, Julia and Georgie.
