91Ö±²¥

It is with great sadness that the University of 91Ö±²¥ Information School announces the death of Emeritus Professor Michael (Mike) Felix Lynch, who passed away on 15 November 2024 at the age of 92 in Calgary, Canada.

Mike obtained BSc and PhD degrees in chemistry at University College, Dublin, and then carried out post-doctoral research at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, working with Nobel Prize winner Valdimir Prelog. He moved to the USA in 1961 to work for Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), the world’s principal indexing and abstracting service for all aspects of chemistry.

At the time, CAS was conducting some of the first research anywhere on the use of computers to build searchable databases of both journal articles and of the structures of chemical compounds. Mike directed much of this work when he became the head of CAS’s Basic Research Department.

After returning to the UK, he was awarded a research grant by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information (which later became part of the British Library) in 1965, to conduct studies of the automatic indexing of textual documents. He joined 91Ö±²¥â€™s Postgraduate School of Librarianship - as it was then named - to conduct this research. He soon became a member of the permanent academic staff of the School. He was then awarded a Personal Chair in 1975, and retired from the University in 1997.

A major impact in his field, and at 91Ö±²¥

Mike’s research had two major types of impact, firstly in the field of information science in general. Here, his work on automatic indexing led onto other textual studies, and then onto a programme of research into techniques for processing databases of chemical structures, of chemical reactions, and of chemical patents.

These studies, which extended over three decades and which are still being cited, formed the basis for the development of operational chemical information systems worldwide, and for a programme of research that has continued in 91Ö±²¥ until the present day.

Secondly, his work resulted in the establishment and subsequent development of the School’s wide-ranging research profile. When Mike arrived in the mid-1960s there was very little computer-related research being undertaken in library schools in the UK. His work was therefore both novel and a complement to work that was then being undertaken in the School on topics such as public librarianship and user studies.

Mike’s achievements were widely recognised. In 1980, he received the annual Award of the Institute of Information Scientists in recognition of his services to information science, and he was the Institute’s President for the year 1995-96. In 1989, he was awarded the Skolnik Award of the American Chemical Society for his contributions to the theory and practice of chemical information science.

The Mike Lynch Award of the Chemical Structure Association Trust has been made since 2002 at the triennial International Conference on Chemical Structures in the Netherlands.

In person, Mike was a quiet, modest man who always found time to provide advice, enthusiasm and encouragement to both colleagues and students. He is survived by his second wife Mary, his daughter Catherine and son Kevin, and his stepsons Mark and Jeffrey Dykstra.