Philip Larkin
Original grumpy old man, English poet, novelist and Jazz critic Philip Larkin may be immortalised for a poetic output which gave us lines like ‘they f**k you up, your Mum and Dad./they may not mean to but they do’ and ‘ I work all day, and get half drunk at night’ but Philip Larkin is equally revered as a Librarian. His library career began in 1943 at Wellington Library, Shropshire and included a stint as Sub librarian of Queens University Belfast in 1950. It is the role of University of Hull Librarian which he assumed in 1955 for which he is most remembered. Among his notable achievements in this post was his decision to computerise the library’s catalogue, making Hull the first library in Europe to install the GEAC system in 1979.
Library Quote of the day
'Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace and wit, reminders of order, calm and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark. The pleasure they give is steady, unorgastic, reliable, deep and long-lasting. In any library in the world, I am at home, unselfconscious, still and absorbed..'
Germaine Greer
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