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Remembering Fred KilgourI was fortunate to have known Fred for the past eight years. He stayed in touch with OCLC, and we met on several occasions. I look back fondly on each of them. The first time I met Fred was in June 1998, at my first OCLC President’s Luncheon at the Annual ALA Conference in Washington, D.C. His flight had been delayed, and he arrived about 15 minutes into the luncheon. The 1,000 people there gave him a standing ovation as he walked to his seat at a reserved table in the front of the room.
Another occasion was in 2002, on what would be Fred’s last trip to OCLC headquarters in Dublin, to the building that bears his name. He was in town to receive the Ohio Senator George Voinovich Award for Information Innovation. He stopped by OCLC, where about 300 staff members showed up in our 153-seat auditorium, and those who couldn’t get in watched him on TV in our atrium. They gave him a standing ovation. I was also able to spend time with Fred on January 6, 2004 at the Louis Round Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. OCLC and the UNC School of Information and Library Science sponsored a 90th birthday celebration for Fred. Needless to say, he got a standing ovation. The last time I saw Fred was on February 22 of this year. Fred and his wife, Eleanor, joined Lorcan Dempsey, Vice President, OCLC Programs and Research, and me for lunch on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Later, Lorcan delivered the inaugural presentation in the OCLC/Frederick G. Kilgour Lecture in Information and Library Science, a series that OCLC endowed in 2004. Both Fred and Eleanor were in good spirits and were pleased to see that the lecture series was going forward. As I go to work each day in the Kilgour Building at OCLC, I have to walk by a portrait of Fred in the atrium. I never fail to ask myself if I have a plan for that day which will in fact move OCLC closer to achieving its goals. At night, when I leave my office overlooking Lake Fred, I have to walk by Fred’s portrait again, and I ask myself, did I accomplish enough today? Fred set the bar dauntingly high, but the joy of stretching to achieve the vision is exciting and energizing. Fred Kilgour lived a rich life that was full of accomplishment. He indeed casts a long shadow and leaves us with a great legacy and an exciting future. Our sincere condolences go out to the Kilgour family. I also want to express to Eleanor Kilgour, Fred’s wife of 65 years, the deepest gratitude of the OCLC cooperative. Thank you, Eleanor, for sharing Fred with us all these years. OCLC will celebrate Fred’s life and his contributions to the public good in a number of venues in the coming months. I expect that he still has several standing ovations coming.
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