Obituaries T
Eric Cooper
he name of Eric Cooper will be known to longer-standing members of the library profession as a pioneer in music and audio-visual librarianship from the 1950s until his retirement in 1989. He had been involved with music from a very
young age, studying violin and jazz clarinet at the Royal Acad- emy of Music and Trinity College London. He performed as a freelance musician until 1950 while working at Edison and Swan, where he learned about electronics and sound recording.
In 1949 he was appointed by
Enfield Public Libraries as Gram- ophone Records Lib rarian, later Music Librarian then Audio Visual Librarian. As well as taking over the library of scores and music books, he began one of the first gramo- phone record lending libraries in
London. He made a small town music library into a place where anyone could get advice on music: ordinary music-lovers had their listening widened through his recommendations, established musical professionals received help and support, and emerging musicians were given assistance with music materials and career advice. He quickly became involved in the profession through IAML (International Association of Music Libraries) and the Library Association, as CILIP then was, devising training sessions, writing standards and guidelines, and being instru- mental in the founding of the Sound Recordings (later Audio Visual) Group of the LA. He was an early advocate for open access for sound recordings, and his proposals for their inter- lending led to the foundation of the Greater London Audio Specialisation Scheme (GLASS). He was constantly looking to keep libraries up to date, believing that the information was more important than the medium, adding non-music recordings and new formats to stock well before this became established practice elsewhere.
This did not always win him friends in the wider profession – many librarians at the time did not take kindly to the idea
Michael Hopkins I
t is with sadness that we share news of the death of Dr Michael Hopkins, former Director of Information Ser- vices at Aberystwyth University, on 30 December 2023. A native of Pontypridd, Dr Hopkins graduated with a BA in History from the University of Leicester in 1967. He studied for a year at the former College of Librarianship Wales at Aberystwyth to gain his ALA. He was awarded a PhD by Loughborough University in 1981. He began his career at Leicester University in 1969 where he was appointed Senior Library Assistant. He was promoted to Assistant Librarian in 1971. Five years later he moved to Loughborough as Sub-Librarian and was appointed Deputy Librarian in 1988.
Throughout his career Dr Hopkins was active in the wider 54 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
librarianship profession, serving on local and national com- mittees of the Library Association (now CILIP – the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) and a number of other professional bodies. Internationally, in the early 1990’s, he was involved in an Overseas Development Agency (now Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO)) project to establish a new Library at Moi University in Kenya. He maintained regular contact with Moi University, returning in 2007 to review developments. Following his PhD, he maintained a strong research
interest. His main area of specialist interest was European Community information and the role of technology in improving access to information. He established himself as a leading authority in this area and was often consulted by
March 2024
that libraries should be about more than books. He became well known in the profession and his advice was sought by many colleagues setting up record libraries around the coun- try and abroad. Never afraid to predict and welcome the future, he presented
the first public demonstrations of teletext and cable technol- ogy to library conferences. His views on the future of libraries could be uncompromising, warning that it was vital to keep up to date with technology; this was greeted with derision by some in the upper echelons of the library profession. Eric, however, had the annoying habit of being right about many things, and his vision of what would become the internet, and its importance to libraries, was certainly accurate. In addition to his library committees, his work on the music panel of the Disabled Living Foundation, and his enthusiasm for music therapy, ensured recognition for the contribution which libraries can make to improving the quality of life for disabled people.
Those of us who worked closely with him couldn’t have wished for a better mentor. He was supportive to his staff but let them do their work without undue interference. He encouraged many of us to become active in the profession and was always pleased when we achieved success. He inspired total loyalty in those who shared his vision. He was made a Fellow of the Library Association in 1975 in recognition of his research and publications, which included the handbook Audiocassettes as Library Materials , joint edited with George Saddington, technical chapters in Gramophone Record Libraries and many conference papers. His legacy lives on in librarians who live by his rule that information must be delivered to users through the best and most relevant formats. His loss will be deeply felt, especially by his two children, two grand-children and great-grandson. He will also be missed by those of us who knew him and owe him so much, but we are so grateful to have been a part of his life.
Ruth Hellen
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