Thompson, Anthony.

Anthony Thompson was born in Edenbridge, Kent in 1911. He was educated at Bedales School, Kent and Magdalene College, Cambridge where he graduated in Modern Languages (French and German) and an Advanced Diploma in Russian. Thompson worked as a cataloguer in the Department of Printed Books at the British Museum (1935-1936) and at the University of Cape Town (1937-1944) before leaving to serve in World War II. On his return to the UK, Thompson worked as the Librarian at: Edinburgh College of Art (1947-1948); the Royal Institute of British Architects (1948-1953) and the Science Museum (1953-1959), before taking up the position of full-time Secretary for the International Federation of Library Associations. Thompson's job as Secretary involved moving to Munich to be close to the President in late 1961, but after the succession of a new President Thompson re-located the secretariat to his house in Seven Oaks, Kent (1962-1970).

Thompson's skills in languages and interest in library architecture and classification schemes led to much research in these areas and resulted in the publication of a number of works including: Vocabularium bibliothecari (Paris: UNESCO, 1953), which was subsequently translated into French, German, Russian and Spanish; List of subject headings on architecture and related subjects: as used in the Periodicals Subject Index of the Sir Banister Fletcher Library of the Royal Institute of British Architects (London: Royal Institute of British Architects, 1968), the material for which was compiled by Thompson whilst at the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1953 but not published until 1968, and Library buildings of Britain and Europe: an international study, with examples mainly from Britain and some from Europe and overseas, with contributions by specialists, which reflected Thompson's interest in library buildings.

After retiring from the International Federation of Library Associations, Thompson went to work at the College of Librarianship Wales, Aberystwyth as a research scholar and language specialist, where his work included translating library literature for the College's journal Selected Publications in European Languages (Aberystwyth: College of Librarianship, Wales). His language skills were also utilised in his translation from French into English of the Classification Scheme for the archives of the Commission of the European Communities (1973), and he edited a further book on library architecture entitled National library buildings: proceedings of the colloquium held in Rome, 3-6 September 1973 (Pullach [Isartal]: Verlag Dokumentation) in 1975. Thompson's interest in the MEILLEUR project led to the publication, in 1977, of MEILLEUR, Mobility of Employment International, for Librarians in EURope: professional staff exchanges and secondments between libraries in Western Europe: a survey of opportunities and difficulties (London: Library Association). On retiring from the College of Librarianship Wales, Thompson worked on a bibliography of Russian literature published as Russia-USSR: a selective annotated bibliography of books in English (Oxford: Clio Press, 1979).

Thompson (who died in 1979) was a member of several library associations including ASLIB (The Association for Information Management), and The Great Britain-USSR Association, and since 1980 the organisation CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) has administered the Anthony Thompson Award which enables foreign librarians the chance to study British librarianship.

From the guide to the Anthony Thompson Papers, 19th Century, 1940s-1979, (Aberystwyth University)