J. C. T. Oates

John Claud Trewinard Oates FBA (24 June 1912 – 11 June 1990)^[1][2] was a librarian at the University of Cambridge, a trustee of the university, and president of the Bibliographical Society (1970–72).

He was educated at The Crypt School, Gloucester, and Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating in 1935. He became assistant under-librarian at Cambridge University Library a year later, was promoted to under-librarian in 1949, deputy librarian in 1975, and finally became acting chief librarian in 1979, a year before his retirement.

He was also Reader (later Emeritus) in Historical Bibliography at Cambridge, and a fellow of Darwin College.^[1] In 1952 he held the Sandars Readership in Bibliography speaking on "A History of the Collection of Incunabula in the Cambridge University Library, and again in 1965 on "Abraham Whelock (1593–1653): Orientalist, Anglo-Saxonist and University Librarian."

He was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 1976.^[3][4]

Selected publications

• Cambridge University Library: A historical sketch. Cambridge University Library, Cambridge, 1975. ISBN 0902205102 (reprinted from The Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, Vol. 4, Marcel Dekker, pp. 50–70.