My colleague and mentor Roy Tabor, who has died aged 91, made an indelible mark on information services in the NHS. Appointed as Wessex regional librarian in 1967, in an era when library services were fragmented and often poor, he laid out principles for a library service in which all clinicians had access to timely, quality information to help with their care. He wanted to make sure that health professionals could access the entire knowledge base of medicine, no matter what their status or location.
To these ends he researched, networked and secured funds to set up a regional network, incorporating newly appointed district librarians and sharing resources with teaching hospitals and medical schools. Essential features were the shared catalogue, an appropriate classification scheme, and an audiovisual library. In 1974 he participated in a pioneering project to enable remote searching of the resources of the US National Library of Medicine.
Empowering the patient was vital to Roy’s philosophy. In 1978 he secured a grant to set up a new database of information for patients, carers and volunteers, which developed as the Help for Health project and was in many respects a pilot and pioneer for the NHS Direct phone-in service.
He also designed libraries at Poole general hospital, Dorset county hospital, Southampton University medical school, and the healthcare libraries of Salisbury, Basingstoke, Winchester and Portsmouth, plus smaller facilities for clinics and psychiatric hospitals.
Roy was reserved and kindly, and also a brilliant networker; as a trainer and mentor he helped to launch the careers of many young librarians. In later years he conducted consultancy work for the British Council and for the University of the West Indies.
The youngest of three children of Edith and Edward Tabor, Roy was born in Brookwood, Surrey. His father had been gassed in the first world war and suffered chronically poor health. Roy attended Woking grammar school before training as a chiropodist at London Foot Clinic, gaining a gold medal in 1946. Travelling to South Africa in 1957, he studied theology at Rhodes University; then qualified as a librarian. He married Margaret Daly in 1958. In 1965 he returned to the UK to lead the Wessex Project, which later became the regional library service.
He retired to the West Indies in 1992, returning to the UK in 2004 when Margaret became ill.
A practical man of many talents, Roy also developed his own shorthand system, called T-Script; wrote poetry; with a friend built the family house near Romsey, Hampshire; acted, produced and directed amateur theatre for the Maskers Theatre and Wayfarers Group, Southampton; and designed stage sets.
His achievements were acknowledged by the award of the Library Association’s Cyril Barnard memorial prize in 1980 and appointment as MBE in 1990.
Margaret died in 2004. Roy is survived by his son, Christopher, and granddaughter, Katherine.
