Leonard Montague Harrod

Leonard Montague Harrod (21 May 1905 – 12 March 1984) was a British librarian and indexer. He was the librarian and the director of the Raffles Library in Singapore, and the Chief Librarian and Curator of Islington Public Libraries.

Early life and education Harrod was born in Horsham, England on 21 May 1905. He attended the Rutlish School in London and the School of Librarianship in University College London.

Career He was on the library staff of Wimbledon Public Library from 1923 to 1924, Fulham Library from 1924 to 1926 and Croydon Central Library from 1926 to 1937. From 1937 to 1940, he served as the Borough Librarian of Mitcham Public Library. and was appointed director the following year. He introduced the Browne Issue System and the usage of a combined receipt for subscriptions and deposits to the library. He purchased nearly 14,000 Chinese-language reference books for $13,600 to balance the representation of Chinese subjects and Chinese literature and initiated a project to translate various English-language children's books into other languages, such as Chinese, Malay and Tamil. He and an architect from the Public Works Department of Singapore designed the National Library Building on Stamford Road. The Libraries of Greater London (1951) Books for Young People, Group III: Fourteen to Seventeen (1957) Library Work with Children (1969) Indexers on Indexing: A Selection of Articles Published in The Indexer (1978)