Giles Martin, assistant editor of the DDC since 1999, retired from OCLC on 17 August and returned home to Australia last weekend. Giles’ history with the Dewey editorial team really began on AUTOCAT (an international discussion list devoted to library cataloging and authority control topics). Giles was a prolific poster in the early days of AUTOCAT, and the Dewey editors noticed that he gave sensible advice on DDC questions. When a vacancy opened up on the Decimal Classification Editorial Policy Committee (EPC) in 1993, the Australian Committee on Cataloguing was invited to nominate a member and Giles was chosen. Giles served on EPC from 1993 until 1999, at which time he joined OCLC as assistant editor of the DDC, the first member of the Dewey editorial team from outside the United States.
One of Giles’ signature phrases is “it’s really messy.” We, Giles' colleagues on the Dewey editorial team, always appreciated his willingness to tackle the things that are “really messy” in the DDC: mathematics, life sciences, agriculture, religion, the ancient world, tricky hierarchies, unbalanced spans, and, messiest of all, the conversion of DDC data from the ESS format (our previous proprietary format) to the MARC 21 classification and authority formats.
Prior to joining the Dewey editorial team, Giles had a distinguished career in Australian libraries that included the following professional posts: cataloguer, University of Sydney; librarian, systems section, University of New South Wales Library; and successive posts at the University of Newcastle Libraries as librarian, senior librarian (cataloguing), head cataloguer, deputy technical services librarian (monographs), and librarian in charge of quality control. He also served on the Australian Bibliographic Network (ABN) Standards Committee, the ABN Subject Headings Review Panel and the Australian Committee on Cataloguing.
Good luck, Giles, on this new phase of your life!!!
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