Scottish Libraries, Column 4

I first met Ian Mowat 32 years and three months ago when he, I and Mel Collier started work together at St Andrews University on the same day. We have told the story a thousand times. Of how we were young Turks together, of how we planned to change our professional world, of how we wanted to make a difference. And Ian did. Although Ian and I only actually worked together for a couple of years, our careers intertwined until a last e-mail sharing a joke, just before he left the office for the last time. Over the years we worked together, sat on committees, spoke at conferences, edited books, plotted, went to German classes, somewhat bizarrely went weight training, drank and talked til late in the night, bickered, were rivals for jobs, but always fast friends.

He was one of the best university librarians of several generations and had a glittering career. In his apparently effortless rise, he moved from post to post leaving a legacy of improvement and of service. But we all know that apparently effortless and stellar careers are based on enormous amounts of hard work and personal sacrifice, and Ian gave both unstintingly. As Ian Rankin once put it, it took years of work to become an overnight success.

I was overwhelmed by the response to his death. Ian’s modesty would have made him astonished and probably rather embarrassed by the way in which the news of his tragic death dominated the Internet for days. The university library website alone had over 5000 hits in five days. I have had and seen e-mails from quite literally every continent expressing disbelief and astonishment. Many of those e-mails have expressed a shock, which will in time become a comfort, that the library world had seen him at IFLA only a few days before. The last time I saw Ian was at an IFLA reception in the Science Centre. He was happy and laughing. Jay Jordan of OCLC had used a remote family connection as an excuse to wear a kilt. Ian and others were also wearing kilts and we took photos together and acted as walking photo opportunities for the literally thousands of librarians gathered there. It was a joyful occasion. There are lots of photos of that night showing Ian at his best: relaxed, with friends, greeting colleagues from all over the world.

Ian and I exchanged e-mails sharing a joke on his last day in the office, but we’d managed to exchange no more than a few words at IFLA as we both rushed around doing things. We planned to meet for lunch before long, but now we never will.

Librarianship is one of the friendliest professions I know and over my career I have made many good friends scattered all over the globe. I tend to neglect them horribly, using e-mails and Christmas cards and a quick drink at conferences as a substitute for spending time together, using the excuse of pressure of work and vaguely assuming there will be space in the diary soon. But real, or more often imagined, pressure on time means there rarely is. Ian’s untimely death will, I hope, lead all of us to reflect on how we manage time and how we value – or too often undervalue – friendship. Take advantage of the time while it’s there. As Carly Simon put it, “These are the good old days.”