Dr David J Jones

MA Dip Lib PhD FALIA

Conferred: 2003

David John Jones, MA [Oxon], Dip Lib, PhD [UNSW], AALIA is a most-worthy candidate for the award of Fellow of the Australian Library and Information Association. He became an Associate member of the Library Association of Australia in 1974, and in 1985 received its inaugural Letter of Recognition. In 1994 he was awarded a doctorate by the University of New South Wales for his thesis WH Ifould and the development of library services in New South Wales 1912-1942.

He was born in Cornwall in 1946. By the end of 1970 he was an attendant in the General Reference Library at the State Library of New South Wales and shortly thereafter, he was enrolled at the School of Librarianship at the University of NSW where he completed his Graduate Diploma in Librarianship. By 1974 he had joined his true alma mater, the Library Association of Australia, a body which for over thirty years he has served with zeal and affection.

He rose steadily in the service of the State Library of New South Wales and by 1978 he was heading the Mitchell Library Reference and Research sections, followed by five years as deputy reference librarian in the General Reference Library. In March 1983 David's career reached a major and unexpected fork in the road, when he became the co-ordinator of an extremely complex task, the State Library of New South Wales New Building and Refurbishing Project. This was an immense undertaking, which called on his deep reserves of diplomacy and sharpened his emergent management skills. Upon completion, he had found his special niche in the profession and entered on his career as library building consultant and manager of the Building and Planning Advisory Service for the State Library. In this capacity, David has been called upon to advise on the planning and construction of library buildings in Australia and South-East Asia, and over the last two decades there is hardly a new or refurbished public library building in Australia which does not bear his mark.

David Jones' service to the Association and his profession has been extraordinary: he has served on the Editorial Board of the Australian Library Journal, has been an external university examiner, served on the Association's Publications Board as both member and chairman, and has been a member of its Board of Education. He was a member of IFLA's Standing Committee Section on Library Buildings and Equipment and was Visiting Specialist, School of Architecture, University of New South Wales, in June 1991. He has been editor of LASIE: Library Automated Systems Information Exchange and convener, Australian Library and Information Association Library Buildings and Equipment Special Interest Group. He has presented papers at IFLA and ALIA conferences, and has been active in the Library History Forums; he also presented papers to the Ninth Congress of Southeast Asian Librarians, Bangkok, 1993, the Asia-Pacific Library Conference, Brisbane, May/June 1995 and the 11th International Seminar on Library Buildings, Shanghai in 1999: Australian librarianship is better-known and understood by neighbours to our north as a result of his labours.

He has also been a prolific author of both monographs and journal articles, beginning with the first edition of The Australian dictionary of acronyms and abbreviations in 1977, and now in its fifth edition, with the sixth germinating. He produced volume 1 of The Australian librarian's manual in 1982, volume 2 a year later, and volume 3 was published in 1985. His A source of inspiration and delight: the buildings of the State Library of New South Wales since 1826 emerged in 1988 and The Source Book: reviews of reference material for Australian libraries and information services in the same year. In 1990 his Planning and design of public library buildings was published. His reviews, articles and papers to conferences are simply too numerous to be listed here, but it is safe to say that in his own right David is the author of a small and considerable library of professional documents.

His doctoral thesis is more than informative. It is, actually and rarely for so monumental a work, readable. He has recently completed, but not yet published, a history of the precursor to the Library Association of Australia, called Uniting a profession: the Australian Institute of Librarians, 1937-1949 a work initiated by his admirer, the late Professor Jean Whyte.

Every profession needs its chroniclers: David Jones is a chronicler extraordinaire. Future historians and commentators will find a rich source in his publications and it is safe to predict that they and he, in time, will be the subject of close study by future generations of researchers. They will marvel, as we do today, at the energy, output and diversity of this genuine prodigy. What they may not be able to perceive, at that remove, is the nature of the man himself. He is erudite, in the true sense of that word, his vocabulary and reading is rich beyond measure. Puckish, as in the sense of wry, humorous, but never to be underestimated, nor taken lightly. Engaging: it is not possible to ignore him, and in debate, unusual to get the better of him. Scholarly, but not pedantic, he has a rich, ripe and Rabelaisian sense of humour, which may be genetic, for his children also have it in good measure, as does his wife, partner and mainstay, Mary. He is - to the core - a true librarian, believing passionately in the power of print, and possibly one of the most committed members the professional association has ever had.

David John Jones has made an absolutely extraordinary contribution to the objectives and goals of his professional association and to the development of librarianship as a fully academic discipline. He is an outstanding candidate for the award of Fellowship of the Australian Library and Information Association.