13 Facts About Douglas Waples

Douglas Waples was a pioneer of the University of Chicago Graduate Library School in the areas of print communication and reading behavior.

Douglas Waples earned bachelor's and master's degrees from Haverford College in 1914 and 1915 and a second master's degree from Harvard University in 1917.

Douglas Waples served as assistant professor at Tufts College near Boston, and in 1923 Waples accepted a demanding tri-part role at the University of Pittsburgh as assistant dean of the graduate school, assistant professor of secondary education, and extension lecturer in a nearby steel mill town.

Douglas Waples then received an appointment as professor of educational method in this new School.

Douglas Waples taught and published and, from 1929 to 1932, he served as acting dean four times.

Douglas Waples identified six goals for the Graduate Library School: he saw a need to legitimize librarianship as a field for graduate research, to confirm a distinction between evidence and assumptions regarding values and methods of administration, to assure adequate training for aspiring public librarians, to meliorate library school instruction, to identify and systematize professional literature, and to promote scholarly publication.

In 1937 Douglas Waples participated in the World Congress of Universal Documentation with Herman Fussler and Watson Davis, head of the American delegation.

Douglas Waples reported on the 14 papers addressing the issues pertinent just before declaration of war.

In 1942 Douglas Waples joined the US and traveled throughout Europe.

In 1947 he and Eleanor Douglas Waples divorced, and, in the same year, he then married Dorothy Blake.

Douglas Waples returned to the University of Chicago in 1948 but departed the Graduate Library School in 1950 to join the interdisciplinary Committee in Communication.

Similarly, Douglas Waples presented knowledge as interdisciplinary and social in all aspects of his revolutionary perspective of library studies.

The most productive era of investigation and writing was in the 1930s, when scholars like Douglas Waples interjected social science research methodology.