PEOPLE Dr Douglas Veal B


est known nowadays as chief standard-bearer for UKeiG’s Tony Kent Strix Award for outstanding contributions to the field of Information Retrieval (IR), Doug Veal was also an outstanding information professional in his own right, a role model for every


aspiring ‘Info Pro’. Always the soul of modesty, in 2023 at the age of 85, he was still leading the efforts of the Strix Award committee to honour the memory and celebrate the pioneering IR exploits of his old friend and colleague Tony Kent. He made nothing of his own long track record in chemistry and information science. Like so many successful information professionals, Doug’s initial background was in a related field – chemistry in his case – giving him first-hand experience of user needs in challenging contexts. After completing a PhD in Colour Chemistry at Leeds University in 1964, he joined The Chemical Society (later to become the Royal Society of Chemistry), starting as an editor at Burlington House in Piccadilly. In 1966 the Chemical Society sent him to Columbus, Ohio for a year to work with the publish- ers of Chemical Abstracts on their increasingly computerised publishing processes. As a collaboration between the leading chemical societies of UK and USA, this project led directly to ground-breaking developments in information retrieval – specifically Selective Dissemination of Information (known then as SDI) derived by batch-processing of the magnetic tapes which were a by-product of the publishing process. Around this time a young zoologist based in Nottingham University had become even more fascinated with the potential of computers to revolutionise the delivery of current awareness and search services to scientists pursuing research outcomes


Brian Kingsmill B


rian was born and brought up in Eltham, southeast London, and was educated at St Dunstan’s College, Catford, and the University of Sheffield. Brian worked at the newly built Bank of England Print- ing works in Debden, Essex, but subsequently moved to Kent to work at the Technical Reports Centre of the Department of Trade and Industry at St Mary Cray. There he pioneered the use of the ESA/IRS Dialtech service, in the 1970s, when the type of networking that later developed into the internet was still in its infancy, and the idea of querying a remote source of informa- tion was quite novel; online databases were first made available then, looking more like computerised abstracts journals than the detailed information resources we see online today. Making it more difficult, you needed a trained professional to do the searching for you, as the protocols were not intuitive; comms technology was much more basic, and speed of accessing those resources was really slow; and you had to pay to access those databases – mainly scientific and technical databases. Brian’s work with Dialtech took him round the country to spread the word and train up users of the technology; and also to Frascati in Italy (ESA headquarters), developing a love for Italian food and cookery – even as far as making his own pasta. Brian was a member of the Institution of Information Scien- tists (the Institute later merged with the Library Association to


form CILIP) and gained a Postgraduate Diploma in Information Science from the City University at this time. He was active in the Institute and the UK Online Users Group, and particularly well known for the musical “Infotainments” at the Institute’s annual conferences.


Brian loved football – a Charlton Athletic supporter – and as a young man played for a local team. He loved canals and boating and did volunteer work on the canals in the time when canal boat holidays were a minority interest, unlike today. He also loved music, playing guitar and harmonica in the Irish Club in Gillingham, Kent; music was a life long passion continued into his 80s. Brian had an outgoing and popular personality, always ready for a bit of fun, he was interested in anything and everything and widely knowledgeable on many subjects. Brian took early retirement from the DTI in the early 90s and travelled extensively before making a new home in Koh Samui in Thailand, a Thai and expat community. He integrated well into local life and settled down with a Thai lady with whom he spent 30 happy years. His funeral took place on 21 June and his ashes will be stored in the family temple in Thailand. He is survived by his brother, daughter, grandchildren and long time partner.


Phil Jenkins


For obituary submissions and guidance please email rob.green@cilip.org.uk with subject “obituary”, or write to us at Obituaries, CILIP, 5th Floor, Woburn House, 20-24 Tavistock Square, London WC1H 2HQ.


Winter 2025 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL 61


that would not simply replicate work done elsewhere. This was the unstoppable Tony Kent, who had taught himself to program so he could more efficiently manage his own ornithology records. The Chemical Society too got involved, and on return from Ohio Doug found himself joining Tony in Nottingham to lead the Society’s research unit on information dissemination and retrieval. With the British Library’s R&D department now funding the venture, the tape-searching expertise honed and targeted in this productive alliance soon spread from Chemical Abstracts to databases such as Medline, Biological Abstracts and the Zoological Record, and was to shape the future of IR for years or arguably decades to come. In 1980 Doug moved to a new job with the Wellcome Pharma- ceutical Company, based in Beckenham, Kent, where he worked on the information-handling side of drug development. After GlaxoSmithKline took Wellcome over and closed the Beckenham establishment in 1995, Doug set up his own Document Manage- ment company, Doverton.


Alongside this enviable professional career Doug was a commit- ted volunteer in community and environmental projects, pursuing sports such as tennis, rambling and sub-aqua diving. He volunteered within his local Church too, and was a leading light in the Institute of Information Scientists, one of the forerunner professional societies leading to the birth of CILIP. As with the best of CILIP members, his working life was dedicated to serving his commun- ity. A man of great kindness and generosity, after succumbing to Parkinson’s disease he is mourned by his widow Margaret and three children.


Stella Clarke


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