W.A.P.F. Steiner: 1918–2003

Extract

William A.F.P. Steiner, one of the founding editors of the Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals has died after a long illness. Willi (always Willi, never William or Dr. Steiner) had received his diplomate from Vienna shortly before he emigrated to England in 1938; he received a Masters degree from Cambridge and a Master of Laws degree from the University of London. He was a barrister of Gray's Inn, but his primary interests were bibliography and the organization of knowledge and information, and he almost immediately embarked on endeavours as a librarian and editor. His first positions were as assistant librarian at the London School of Economics, 1946–1958, and then the Squire Law Library at Cambridge, 1959–1968. In 1968 he returned to London as the Librarian of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, also serving as the Secretary of the Institute from 1968 to 1971. In 1984 he returned to Cambridge, where he had continued to live since 1959, but only to a semi-retirement of consulting, teaching and writing.