author
W. C. Berwick (William Charles Berwick) Sayers
1881–1960
A leading British librarian and teacher of classification, he helped shape public library practice in the first half of the 20th century. His writing joined practical library work with a lasting interest in how knowledge should be organized and shared.
1 Audiobook
Manual of Library Economy Third and Memorial Edition
by James Duff Brown, W. C. Berwick (William Charles Berwick) Sayers
About the author
Born in Mitcham, Surrey, in 1881, W. C. Berwick Sayers built his career in British public libraries and became especially associated with Croydon. He worked for many years with Croydon Public Libraries, first under L. Stanley Jast and later as Chief Librarian, while also teaching and writing on librarianship and classification.
He is remembered as an important early voice in library classification. Alongside his day-to-day library work, he wrote influential books on cataloguing, classification, and local collections, and he also contributed to local history with work including Croydon and the Great War. In 1938, he served as President of the Library Association in the United Kingdom.
Sayers died in 1960, but his reputation lasted well beyond his lifetime. For readers today, he stands out as one of those library thinkers who cared both about the practical running of libraries and the bigger question of how ideas can be arranged so people can actually find and use them.