Jesse Shera

Jesse Hauk Shera (December 8, 1903 – March 8, 1982) was an American librarian and information scientist who pioneered the use of information technology in libraries and played a role in the expansion of its use in other areas throughout the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.

He was born in Oxford, Ohio on December 8, 1903, the only child of parents Charles, and Jessie Shera. His hometown of Oxford was a farming community and the home of Miami University. Shera went to William McGuffey High School, and graduated in 1921. While attending high school he played the drums in the school band, was a member of the debate team, a cheerleader, and he was the senior class president. He lived in Oxford until after he obtained his undergraduate degree from Miami University. In 1925 Miami University awarded Shera with a B.A. in English with honors. Shera later went on to earn a master's degree in English literature from Yale University in 1927 and a Doctorate in library science from the University of Chicago in 1944, advised by Louis Round Wilson with Pierce Butler on his committee.

Shera suffered from strabismus throughout his life.

In 1928, Shera returned to Miami University and took a temporary job in the library as an assistant cataloguer and later in the year took a job as a research associate and bibliographer with the Scripps Foundation for Research in Population Problems. He remained a part of this project through 1938. Shera hoped to become a college English teacher but never succeeded due to the depression and a lack of available teaching positions in colleges and universities. “In what he has called ‘an act of desperation on my part which the library profession has lived to regret,’ he decided to make librarianship his career.”

In the thirties, Shera was trying to convince the ALA Bulletin to be a more serious journal, and for librarians to be more careful and precise in how they answered patron questions. In short, he was concerned with their level of professionalism. At that particular time, there was no “professional creed”, and this upset him, also.

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