Frederick Kilgour
| Fred Kilgour | |
|---|---|
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| Born | Frederick Gridley Kilgour January 6, 1914 Springfield, Massachusetts |
| Died | July 31, 2006 (aged 92) Chapel Hill, North Carolina |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Library science |
| Institutions | |
| Alma mater | Harvard College |
| Influenced | Jeffrey Beall |
| Spouse | Eleanor Margaret Beach |
Frederick "Fred" Gridley Kilgour (January 6, 1914 – July 31, 2006) was an American librarian and educator known as the founding director of OCLC (Online Computer Library Center), an international computer library network and database that changed the way people use libraries. He was its president and executive director from 1967 to 1980.
Born in Springfield, Massachusetts to Edward Francis and Lillian Piper Kilgour, Kilgour earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Harvard College in 1935 and afterward held the position as assistant to the director of Harvard University Library.
In 1940, he married Eleanor Margaret Beach, who had graduated from Mount Holyoke College and taken a job at the Harvard College Library, where they met.
In 1942 to 1945, Kilgour served during World War II as a lieutenant in the U.S. Naval Reserve and was Executive Secretary and Acting Chairman of the U.S. government’s Interdepartmental Committee for the Acquisition of Foreign Publications (IDC), which developed a system for obtaining publications from enemy and enemy-occupied areas. This organization of 150 persons in outposts around the world microfilmed newspapers and other printed information items and sent them back to Washington, DC.
An example of the kind of intelligence gathered was the Japanese “News for Sailors” reports that listed new minefields. These reports were sent from Washington, D.C. directly to Pearl Harbor and U.S. submarines in the Western Pacific. Kilgour received the Legion of Merit for his intelligence work in 1945. He worked at the United States Department of State as deputy director of the Office of Intelligence Collection and Dissemination from 1946-48.
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