Friends: I have chosen to be the messenger bringing some sad news to the LIS community. A great academic librarian and a champion of open access, Fred Friend is no more. Fred was a librarian of the University College of London and an adviser to JISC. He rarely, rather never, talked about himself or his contributions. One can call him self effacing. I had met him a few times (in conferences) and had corresponded with him a few times. His commitment to his work was truly amazing. RIP. Arun ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: LIBLICENSE <liblicense@gmail.com> Date: Tue, Apr 29, 2014 at 4:45 AM Subject: Fred Friend To: LIBLICENSE-L@listserv.crl.edu From: David Prosser <david.prosser@rluk.ac.uk> Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2014 13:35:23 +0100 I have been tasked with a very sad commission. Neither Alma or Paul are subscribers to Liblicesne and so they have asked me to post the message below. Fred was a gentle man and a compelling open access advocate. We will miss him and our thoughts are with his family - who I know he cherished greatly. David ——————————————————————————————— A message from Alma Swan (a.swan@talk21.com) and Paul Ayris ( p.ayris@ucl.ac.uk): Friends, It is with great sadness that we have to tell you of the death last week of Fred Friend. Fred was one of the staunchest supporters of Open Access and worked to further its aims for almost two decades. Early in that period he was, of course, Librarian at University College London, a position that gave him influence and the means to push arguments for openness that were at the time new and considered rather heretical. After retirement from that post Fred served for many years as a consultant to JISC, advising and carrying out research work for JISC on scholarly communications. He was in his element in this role as it gave him the opportunities he needed to continue making the arguments for Open Access and to develop practical initiatives that helped to advance the cause. Latterly, Fred pursued his aims through continuing consultancy jobs and indeed at the time of his death he was embarking on an ambitious analysis of OA policies. We have lost a very good friend of Open Access and a great humanitarian. For many there will also be the feeling of losing a kind and loyal personal friend. His daughter, Cate, said to us, “It means so much to hear about his professional life - he was so private and so humble that he never really talked about what he did (I used to joke with him and tell him that I told everyone that he was a spy!).” We would like the OA community -- Fred’s friends -- to let Cate and the rest of Fred’s family know about the work Fred did and the great colleague that he was, so we are going to collect tributes to Fred and his work and will put these together into a book for his family. If you have something to say, please email your words to one of us, including your job title where relevant to give some context to your comments for the family. Thank you in advance for your contributions. For those who can attend the funeral, the ceremony will be held at 12.30pm on Thursday 1st May at St Michael and All Angels, Hughenden, near High Wycombe in the UK. The family will welcome anyone who can be with them on that occasion. -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.