kilgour [OCLC]

OCLC Founder, Frederick G. Kilgour, celebrates 90 years

On January 6, OCLC and the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill honored OCLC Founder, Frederick G. Kilgour, on his 90th birthday. The celebration included tributes to his career and contributions to librarianship and a thank-you to his wife of 63 years, Eleanor, for sharing him with the library community.

OCLC presented Mr. Kilgour with Volume 3 of Collected Papers of Frederick G. Kilgour: Later Years. This volume contains 38 scholarly papers he has written since OCLC published Volume 2 in 1984. It includes Mr. Kilgour’s 205th paper, which was also published in the January 2004 issue of the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. He published his first scholarly paper in 1938.

OCLC also announced a $100,000 gift to establish the annual OCLC/Frederick G. Kilgour Lecture at the School of Information and Library Science at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Speakers at the celebration included Joe Hewitt, Associate Provost for University Libraries, UNC-Chapel Hill; William Crowe, OCLC Board of Trustees, and Spencer Librarian, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas; Phyllis Spies, Vice President, Worldwide Library Services, OCLC; Joanne Gard Marshall, Dean, School of Information and Library Science, UNC-Chapel Hill; and Jay Jordan, OCLC President and CEO.

In his typical, forward-thinking way, Mr. Kilgour responded to well-wishers who sang “Happy Birthday!” to him: “On to 100!”

Collected Papers of Frederick G. Kilgour: Later Years is available for US $40.00 in a softbound, 288-page volume. You can order this volume online at the OCLC Web site. Also available at the OCLC Web site is a 29-minute streaming video of the birthday celebration.