Career

From 1963 to 1967, he was a Subject Editor at the British National Bibliography. He was also a developer of innovative digital cataloguing systems

Library catalog

A library catalog is a register of all bibliographic items found in a library or group of libraries, such as a network of libraries at several locations...

 and the creator of the PRECIS indexing language in 1974, which was used worldwide and for the British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 National Bibliography. "His aim was to create an indexing system that would liberate indexers from the constraints of 'relative significance' (main entries). ...As by-products of his indexing theories he worked out drafts that in the mid-1980s were accepted as British and International Standards for examining documents, and for establishing multilingual and monolingual thesauri". PRECIS was an example of the application of syntactical devises in indexing. It was replaced at the British National Biography by COMPASS in 1996, which was later replaced by Library of Congress Subject Headings

Library of Congress Subject Headings

The Library of Congress Subject Headings comprise a thesaurus of subject headings, maintained by the United States Library of Congress, for use in bibliographic records...

.

After 1974, Austin was head of the Subject System Office, The British Library.

Awards

• 1976 Ranganathan Award, from FID/CR and the Documentation Research and Training Centre (Bangalore)
• 1978 Margaret Mann Citation, from the American Library Association
  American Library Association
  The American Library Association is a non-profit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 62,000 members....
  
  

Austin was a supernumerary

Supernumerary

A Supernumerary is an additional member of an organization. A supernumerary is also a non-regular member of a staff, a member of the staff or an employee who works in a public office who is not part of the manpower complement...

 Fellow

Fellow

A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...

 at Harris Manchester College

Harris Manchester College, Oxford

Harris Manchester College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Formerly known as Manchester College, it is listed in the University Statutes as Manchester Academy and Harris College, and at University ceremonies it is called Collegium de Harris et...

, University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

. He was also a member of the Royal Corps of Signals

Royal Corps of Signals

The Royal Corps of Signals is one of the combat support arms of the British Army...

from 1941-1946.