Peter Stone died
at the age of 79, in March 2022.Peter Stone died
at the age of 79, in March 2022.
Peter Stone joined the staff of the Library, as one of the Assistant Librarians, in 1968. He was initially subject librarian for biological sciences and psychology and looked after the library interests of BIOLS, the School of Biological Sciences.
By the following summer Peter had also taken on responsibility for the management of the Library's book lending operations. Sussex in the late 1960s was already an extremely busy library and carried out more loan transactions than any other academic library in the UK. The load of business was in danger of overwhelming everything. Peter worked with colleagues in the Library and in the Data Processing Office of the University's Administration to develop from scratch a computer-based system to record about 250,000 loan transactions each year. (There were no off-the-shelf library computer systems in those days!) The system went live in 1971 and was the first of the Library's successful ventures into the use of computer technology.
In due course Peter was responsible for an early online version of the catalogue but soon his role expanded and he managed the Library's increasing engagement with the digital revolution which has now blossomed into the electronic universe - seamless communications, electronic journals, the Internet and the World Wide Web - which are now taken for granted. Peter's imagination, hard work, and fierce determination ensured that the Library was always at the cutting edge.
Peter was active nationally in these digital developments. He was involved in the early design of JANET (the Joint Academic Network) which was launched in 1984 and thrives today "keeping eighteen million users in education and research reliably and securely connected". Peter was a genuine visionary and a genuine enthusiast. One of his ex-colleagues has said that he was the most imaginative member of the library profession that he ever met.
Peter was active in the AUT both locally and nationally: he was the local Secretary for some years, and nationally he was an energetic member of the Working Party which ensured that non-academic faculty (professional library, administrative and computer services staff) were paid on the same salary scales as their academic faculty colleagues.
Peter took early retirement in 1992.
Bob Young
Adrian Peasgood
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