25 Facts About Fred Kilgour

Frederick Gridley Kilgour was an American librarian and educator known as the founding director of OCLC, an international computer library network and database.

Fred Kilgour was its president and executive director from 1967 to 1980.

In 1942 to 1945 Fred Kilgour served during World War II as a lieutenant in the US Naval Reserve and was Executive Secretary and Acting Chairman of the US government's Interdepartmental Committee for the Acquisition of Foreign Publications, which developed a system for obtaining publications from enemy and enemy-occupied areas.

Fred Kilgour received the Legion of Merit for his intelligence work in 1945.

Fred Kilgour worked at the United States Department of State as deputy director of the Office of Intelligence Collection and Dissemination from 1946 to 1948.

Fred Kilgour asked his staff to collect empirical data, such as use of books and journals by categories of borrowers to guide selection and retention of titles.

Fred Kilgour joined the Ohio College Association in 1967 to develop OCLC and led the creation of a library network that today links 72,000 institutions in 170 countries.

Fred Kilgour was president of OCLC from 1967 to 1980, presiding over its rapid growth from an intrastate network to an international network.

In 1981 Fred Kilgour stepped down from management but continued to serve on the OCLC Board of Trustees until 1995.

Fred Kilgour was a distinguished research professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Information and Library Science.

Fred Kilgour was survived by his wife and their daughters, Marta Kilgour and Vajra Alison Kilgour of New York City, and Meredith Kilgour Perdiew of North Edison, New Jersey; and two grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

The shared cataloging system and database that Fred Kilgour devised made it unnecessary for more than one library to originally catalog an item.

Fred Kilgour is widely recognized as one of the leading figures in 20th century librarianship for his work in using computer networks to increase access to information in libraries around the world.

Fred Kilgour was among the earliest proponents of adapting computer technology to library processes.

The database that Fred Kilgour created, now called WorldCat, is regarded as the world's largest computerized library catalog, including not only entries from large institutions such as the Library of Congress, the British Library, the Russian State Library and Singapore, but from small public libraries, art museums and historical societies.

Fred Kilgour studied under George Sarton, a pioneer in the new discipline of the history of science, and began publishing scholarly papers.

Fred Kilgour launched a project to build a collection of microfilmed foreign newspapers to help scholars have access to newspapers from abroad.

In 1965, Fred Kilgour was named associate librarian for research and development at Yale University.

Fred Kilgour continued to conduct experiments in library automation and to promote their potential benefits in the professional literature.

Fred Kilgour pointed out that the explosion of research information was placing new demands on libraries to furnish information completely and rapidly.

Fred Kilgour advocated the use of the computer to eliminate human repetitive tasks from library procedures, such as catalog card production.

Fred Kilgour recognized nearly 40 years ago the potential of linking libraries in computer networks to create economies of scale and generate "network effects" that would increase the value of the network as more participants were added.

In 1990 Fred Kilgour was named Distinguished Research Professor of the School of Information and Library Science, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and served on the faculty until his retirement in 2004.

Fred Kilgour was the founder and first editor of the journal, Information Technology and Libraries.

Fred Kilgour received numerous awards from library associations and five honorary doctorates.