PEOPLE
Susanne Woodman S
usanne (known to her family as Susan), having obtained a Classics degree, followed by an HNC in Computer Studies, gained a postgraduate diploma in Librarianship at the Polytechnic of North London. She worked in various libraries: Watford College, Department of the Employment, and MAFF, before she joined BRE (Building Research Establishment – construction research) in 1987, as Timber Librarian at Princes Risborough Laboratory (PRL). PRL moved to BRE Garston in 1988. She continued abstracting articles for the BRE Library database – Brix – but widened her subject field to cover ener- gy and the indoor environment. She prepared bibliographies. She
provided authoritative information services for BRE staff; contributing to the delivery of projects through literature searches She ran the online bookshop,
BREBookshop.com, for several years. She reviewed drafts of BRE publications for the BRE Trust. More recently, she was involved in looking for tender opportunities and providing information to support bids for new work.
Her legacy to BRE includes the extensive archive – both physical and electronic – of BRE publications and the Tech- nical Library area of BRE’s intranet so that staff can retrieve
information on past BRE research. When the library databases were to be loaded into the intranet she, along with colleagues, worked hard to ensure that the content of the various data fields were still searchable, and advanced searching by field was preserved.
Outside of work, Susanne was an accomplished seamstress – sewing and embroidery. She enjoyed reading and was always cutting out articles of interest for friends and colleagues – a true disseminator. She was an avid crossword competitor – regularly winning prizes in the TLS and Nemo’s Almanack competitions. She was very family-minded and a good and faithful friend.
Having been diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer in December 2017, she started to put her affairs in order. In March 2018 she married Phillip – her partner of some 21 years. She went on one last holiday to the Scilly Isles and a trip to her beloved St Ives. She died peacefully, with Phillip by her side, on 8 October, at the Peace hospice, Watford. All who knew Susanne admired her for her professionalism, her kindness and helpfulness, and above all for her incredible courage dealing with her illness and prognosis – continuing to come to work; determined to complete what she could in the time left to her.
She will be greatly missed by her friends and colleagues. Marian Bodian
BRE colleague and friend for 25 years
William Dieneman W March 2019
illiam Wolfgang Dieneman died on 26 September. He was born in 1929 in Cottbus, spending his early childhood years in Berlin. His father was a judge but the family suffered persecution under the Nazi regime and William escaped to Britain in 1939 at the age of nine on the Kindertransport. Fortunately the family were later reunited.
After the war, William attended Christ Church College, Oxford, gaining early experience as a trainee in their library while studying for his degree. In the early 1950s, he was an assistant librarian in the Commonwealth Forestry Institute Library at Oxford before taking up a post as sub-librarian at the Univer-
sity of Ibadan between 1954-59. This was followed by a period in charge of the Nigerian College of Technology Library, but in 1962 he moved to become deputy librarian at Trinity College Dublin. Here he was involved in early work towards computeri- sation of their cataloguing system. William was appointed as Librarian at Aberystwyth University
in 1970 after the sudden death of Dr H. D. Emanuel. During the 1970s, he was heavily involved with the planning and execution of the new Hugh Owen Library site on Penglais Campus, bring- ing together the previously disparate library services through the university. The new library building, officially opened by Prince Charles in July 1977, received various professional plaudits, including the Sconul Library Design award. Despite later refurbishments, it remains as a tribute to his vision to this day.
Throughout his career, William was active in library management, serving on governing bodies as diverse as the Northern Nigerian Library Association and the National Library of Wales and the newly formed Welsh Higher Education Library Forum.
William retired in 1995, and was then active volunteering with the Citizens Advice Bureau for a number of years. William’s wife Marisa died in 2016, and he is survived by his daughter Rachel.
Bill Hines former Assistant Director Information Services, Aberystwyth University Library
INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL 55
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