Foreword

I was only at the BAFTA awards dinner in the Grosvenor Hotel in London because at the last minute a government minister had found it necessary to attend a parliamentary debate and left an empty place at the table. Robert Craig sat opposite me. The pate gleamed softly in the suffused lighting, the hands worked gently with the rituals of the pipe-smoker and the genial beam of the man who has eaten well sat on his face. We watched the spotlight fall on Lord Puttnam as the announcement was read out.

‘… And the nominations for the BAFTA Interactive Entertainments Awards in the Learning Category are: George Lucas, Stephen Spielberg and the Scottish Library Association.’

Robert Craig, first full-time Director of the Scottish Library Association (now, of course, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information professionals in Scotland) and founding Director of the Scottish Library and Information Council could quietly revel in the fact that we had pulled it off again. Of course, we came second to Spielberg, but if a man is to be judged by the company he keeps, Robert Craig had just moved that judgement to a new level. Heineken man may reach the parts others don’t, but Lagavulin man reaches parts others can’t even imagine.

It has been fashionable for more than a decade to denigrate the term ‘librarian’ and to look for synonyms which we hope might allow our professional skills to be valued for the importance they have in an information society, rather than being pigeonholed at the mere mention of the word. Never a dedicated follower of fashion, Robert Craig has preferred to take the fight to the enemy, to celebrate the role and skills of the librarian and to ensure that librarians have become central and indispensable to everyone, from government ministers to showbiz gurus.

Curiously, Robert has not himself spent a large part of his career as manager of a major library, but has instead embraced a role as a hugely effective advocate for all libraries. He has revolutionised the advisory structure in which libraries operate. He has made libraries, the SLA and SLIC credible and influential with local and national politicians and senior institutional managers. He has acted as an advisor to government. And he has created a larger, more potent network than many an accomplished politician, many a senior industrialist.

His focus has always been on practical achievements and getting things done, usually working discreetly in the background to ensure that the skills of librarians, the members of the SLA and SLIC, are recognised and used to support local and national initiatives. He has been able to show how libraries can contribute to issues on existing political and managerial agendas and success in this has helped him to place other library issues on the same agendas. He has led both the SLA and SLIC to the heart of information technology development, where he has ensured that the focus has been on much more than hardware. At least one government minister has been heard to use the word metadata, in the right context and with apparent understanding.

The Scottish Library Association – the Chartered Institute of Library Information Professionals in Scotland – dedicates these essays to Robert Craig with thanks and affection. This very readable Festschrift is meant to reflect the breadth of his interests and achievement. It includes personal reflections and anecdotes, as well as professional essays and is a simple expression of both the pride and the gratitude that individual authors, fellow librarians and the Association at large have for Robert. No one ever better fitted Burns’ view that ‘the man’s the gowd for a’ that’.

Derek Law

President, Scottish Library Association (until April 2002)

President, Chartered Institute of Library Information Professionals in Scotland

2002