Gerald J. Oppenheimer

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Gerald J. Oppenheimer
Born
Julius Oppenheimer

(1922-08-05)August 5, 1922
Frankfurt, Germany
DiedAugust 23, 2016(2016-08-23) (aged 94)
Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Academic background
Alma mater University of Washington
Harvard University
Academic work
Main interestsHealth sciences libraries, medical libraries, special libraries

Julius Oppenheimer (August 5, 1922 – August 23, 2016), known professionally as Gerald J. Oppenheimer, was an American librarian and scholar. He retired from the directorship of the Health Sciences Library at the University of Washington, a post he held from 1963 until 1987. [1] [2]

Librarian person who works professionally in a library, and is usually trained in librarianship

A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library, providing access to information and sometimes social or technical programming to users. In addition, librarians provide instruction on information literacy.

University of Washington Libraries

The University of Washington Libraries are among the largest academic research libraries in North America and won the 2004 ACRL "Excellence in Academic Libraries Award". They are located in the state of Washington, USA in four cities: Seattle, Tacoma, Bothell, and Friday Harbor.

Contents

Biography

Gerald Oppenheimer was born Julius Oppenheimer in Frankfurt am Main, Germany on August 5, 1922, [3] the son of Jacob and Bella (Spier) Oppenheimer. He immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1940 via the Soviet Union, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan. He attended Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, for two years, after which the family settled in Seattle, where Oppenheimer attended college. He served in the U.S. Army from 1943-1944 and in the U.S. Coast Guard Voluntary Port Security Force in 1945. In 1946, he married Mildred Karnofsky.

Soviet Union 1922–1991 country in Europe and Asia

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. Nominally a union of multiple national Soviet republics, its government and economy were highly centralized. The country was a one-party state, governed by the Communist Party with Moscow as its capital in its largest republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Other major urban centres were Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Alma-Ata, and Novosibirsk. It spanned over 10,000 kilometres east to west across 11 time zones, and over 7,200 kilometres north to south. It had five climate zones: tundra, taiga, steppes, desert and mountains.

Mongolia Landlocked country in East Asia

Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia. Its area is roughly equivalent with the historical territory of Outer Mongolia, and that term is sometimes used to refer to the current state. It is sandwiched between China to the south and Russia to the north. Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, although only 37 kilometres (23 mi) separates them.

Korea Region in East Asia

Korea is a region in East Asia. Since 1948, it has been divided between two distinct sovereign states: North Korea and South Korea. Korea consists of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and several minor islands near the peninsula. Korea is bordered by China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and neighbours Japan to the east by the Korea Strait and the Sea of Japan.

He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Washington in 1946 and 1947, respectively, and attended graduate school at Harvard University from 1947 to 1952. After earning a master's degree in library science from Columbia University in 1953, Oppenheimer worked as a librarian at the Seattle Public Library, head of the Fisheries/Oceanography Library at the University of Washington, and a manager of information services at Boeing Scientific Research Laboratories. In 1963, he became the director of the Health Sciences Library, a position he held until his retirement in 1987. Under his tenure, in 1968 the Health Sciences Library became only the second regional medical library in the country. He was also the founding president of the Association of Academic Health Sciences Library Directors. [4] Throughout his career, Oppenheimer held multiple offices in the Medical Library Association, the National Library of Medicine, the National Cancer Institute, the Special Libraries Association, and the University of Washington.

Harvard University private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with about 6,700 undergraduate students and about 15,250 postgraduate students. Established in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, clergyman John Harvard, Harvard is the United States' oldest institution of higher learning, and its history, influence, and wealth have made it one of the world's most prestigious universities.

Library science is an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary field that applies the practices, perspectives, and tools of management, information technology, education, and other areas to libraries; the collection, organization, preservation, and dissemination of information resources; and the political economy of information. Martin Schrettinger, a Bavarian librarian, coined the discipline within his work (1808–1828) Versuch eines vollständigen Lehrbuchs der Bibliothek-Wissenschaft oder Anleitung zur vollkommenen Geschäftsführung eines Bibliothekars. Rather than classifying information based on nature-oriented elements, as was previously done in his Bavarian library, Schrettinger organized books in alphabetical order. The first American school for library science was founded by Melvil Dewey at Columbia University in 1887.

Columbia University Private Ivy League research university in New York City

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After retirement, Oppenheimer served as the vice president, secretary, and archivist of the Puget Sound Association of Phi Beta Kappa and the executive secretary of Phi Beta Kappa's Alpha of Washington Chapter at the University of Washington. [5] He died in Seattle, Washington on August 23, 2016. [6]

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References

  1. ↑ "Oral History Project: Voices of the Past," Medical Library Association, June 25, 1999 Archived October 19, 2012, at the Wayback Machine .
  2. ↑ "MLA Fellow Brief Vitæ," Medical Library Association, June 6, 2003 Archived January 3, 2013, at the Wayback Machine .
  3. ↑ "Guide to the Gerald J. Oppenheimer Collection 1719-1997". Finding Aids. Retrieved May 21, 2015.
  4. ↑ "Oral History Project: Voices of the Past," Medical Library Association, June 25, 1999 Archived October 19, 2012, at the Wayback Machine .
  5. ↑ "Officers/Board of Trustees." Puget Sound Association of Phi Beta Kappa. Retrieved February 18, 2014 from http://www.psa-pbk.org/officers.html
  6. ↑ "Gerald J. Oppenheimer 1922 - 2016". The Seattle Times. Retrieved August 26, 2016.

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