Alan Pollard

Alan Pollard (1877-1948) was a British scientist and documentalist.

Not to be confused with Alfred William Pollard (1859–1944), English bibliographer.

Alan Faraday Campbell Pollard (1877-1948) was a British professor of optics and advocate of documentation. He joined the technical staff of Siemens Brothers in Stafford in 1907. After study at the London University Pollard became a munitions specialist. He joined Nobel's Explosives Ltd in Croydon and was chief physicist. During the First World War he became captain in the Royal Air Force and in charge of certain types of aircraft instruments at the Air Ministry. He was appointed sub-director of the Instrument Section of the Ministry of Munitions in 1918 and captain in the Royal Air Force. In 1919 he was appointed to the chair in instrument design in the Technical Optics Department of the Imperial College, London until he retired and became professor emeritus. He invented or developed a wide range of instruments and appliances and received a DSc (Engineering) degree in 1943. Pollard died August 15, 1948 at Thames Ditton, Surrey.

Contributions

Famous for his neatness, Pollard was an active advocate of systematic documentation. He promoted the Universal Decimal Classification and helpd develop the class numbers for optics. Pollard was the first President of the British Society for International Bibliography ((BSIB), co-founded with S. C. Bradford, from 1927-1945. BSIB was the British affiliate of the FID. He was also very active in the International Institute for Bibliography (later FID and was President 1927-1928.

Publications

• "The World List of Scientific Periodicals." Aslib proceedings 1 (1924) 78--79 [1]
• The decimal bibliographical classification of the Institut international de bibliographie, partly translated for the formation and use of a universal bibliographical repertory concerning optics, light, and cognate subjects. Cambridge, 1926. "Abridged translation of the classification tables contained in the Manuel du répertoire bibliographique universel ... intended to serve as a guide to the Decimal index of the Transactions of the Optical society."
• The kinematical design of couplings in instrument mechanisms. London: Hilger, 1929. Reprinted London: Hilger & Watts, 1951.

Further reading

• Martin, L. C. "Prof. Alan F. C. Pollard." Nature 162, no. 4122 (Oct. 30, 1948): 686–687. Obituary. [2]
• "Professor A. F.C. Pollard", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 4 No. 2, (March 1948): 63-66.
• [Professor Alan Faraday Campbell Pollard (1877-1948)] Engineering (July-Dec 1948): 184. Obituary.
• Rayward, W. B. The universe of information: The work of Paul Otlet for documentation and international organisation. Moscow: FID. (FID Publ. 520)
• Laqua, Daniel. "Intellectual Exchange and the New Information Order of the Interwar Years: The British Society for International Bibliography, 1927–1937." Library Trends 62, no 2 (Fall 2013): 465-477. [3]

Papers

Science Museum Group, London. British Society for International Bibliography [4] [5]