Frederick Kilgour, OCLC Founder, Dies at 92
-- Library Journal, 8/3/2006
Frederick G. Kilgour, who transformed librarianship by founding OCLC and developing the WorldCat database, died on July 31. He was 92 and most recently a distinguished research professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, serving until 2004. Kilgour was a techno-visionary throughout his career. In a November 15, 1989 article for Library Journal ("Toward 100 Percent Availability"), he posited a "system for retrieving information from books in machine-readable form," with full-text stored online—an apparent precursor to Google's ambitious plan to scan library collections.
While working at the Harvard University Library, he began to experiment in automating library procedures, notably the use of punched cards for circulation, and began graduate study in the history of science. He continued his studies at the Columbia University School of Library Science, New York, and the naval reserve during World War II. Later, while librarian of the Yale Medical Library, New Haven, CT, he began to investigate library use and effectiveness. Kilgour embraced the computer, helping develop a prototype computerized library catalog system for three medical libraries and arguing for linked networks to leverage the skills and data that libraries could provide. In 1967, he was hired by the Ohio College Association to lead the Ohio College Library Center (which eventually became the Online Computer Library Center, or OCLC) in developing a shared library system. Four years later, WorldCat, that shared cataloging system, emerged. Because libraries no longer had to catalog each item from scratch, they could vastly increase the number of books cataloged and with fewer staff.
Kilgour, president of OCLC from 1967 to 1980, helped it grow to a vast international network, instituting an online interlibrary loan system and launching multiple other endeavors. OCLC now links 55,000 institutions in 110 countries. Kilgour continued to serve on the OCLC Board of Trustees until 1995. He wrote 205 scholarly papers and several books, including Evolution of the Book (Oxford Univ., 1999). In 1982, the American Library Association presented him with honorary life membership. In 1979, the American Society for Information Science and Technology gave him the Award of Merit. "Fred Kilgour lived a rich life that was full of accomplishment," said Jay Jordan, OCLC president and CEO. "His vision continues to influence the evolution of research, scholarship, and education in the digital age."
