IN MEMORIAM
EUGENE BERNARD JACKSON
Eugene B. (Jack) Jackson was born at Frankfort, Indiana, June
18, 1915, to John H. Jackson and Goldie Belle (Michael) Jackson.
He
attended local schools in Lafayette, Indiana, including its Jefferson
High
School, where he played in the band. While studying at Purdue University,
the band of which he was a member played at the Century of Progress’s
Hall of Science, Chicago, 1933-34. Jackson received a bachelor
of science with distinction in engineering in 1937 from Purdue,
and
he earned the graduate degree of bachelor of science in library
science with honors in 1938 from the University of Illinois at
Urbana. In
1942, he earned an advanced master of arts in library science from
Illinois. During his years in Urbana-Champaign he met his future
wife, Ruth L. Whitlock, who was also preparing to become a librarian;
they married at Indianapolis, August 6, 1941, when Jackson was
holding his first professional appointment as documents librarian
at the
University of Alabama library in Tuscaloosa.
Although he had accepted an appointment to the technology department
of the Detroit Public Library, he was on leave from spring 1943,
when he reported to Camp Barkeley,
Texas, near Abilene, for U.S. Army basic training. Thereafter, he was assigned
to Texas Tech College in Lubbock and its program in advanced mechanical engineering.
He served in Europe as a technical librarian with the 12th armored division
in the third army and was responsible for collecting ordnance information
for storage
and retrieval by a truck-mounted, mobile technical manual center. After the
cessation of hostilities, he served in Belgium with the Army of
Occupation until 1946 when
he returned to what would become Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton,
Ohio, to oversee technical information operations. This position
led him to increasing
leadership appointments in government agencies, including chief of the units
dealing with aeronautical intelligence and research information of the National
Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA, the forerunner of NASA), in which
he served as liaison with NATO and other international bodies.
In 1956, Jackson
became head of the library of General Motors Research Laboratories, technical
center, Warren, Michigan—a position he held until 1965, when he became
director of information retrieval and library services at the IBM corporate
headquarters in Armonk, New York, and was responsible for supervision of IBM
libraries worldwide.
Throughout his career, Jackson was a leader in the Special Libraries Association
in which he held several top offices and received several well-earned recognitions.
He also taught for several summers as visiting lecturer at the University of
Michigan and the University of Illinois. In 1971, he was recruited by the late
Dean Stanley McElderry to the post of professor, Graduate School of Library and
Information Science, now School of Information, The University of Texas at Austin,
where he taught courses in science and technology resources, management, information
retrieval, and special libraries until August 1985, after which he became professor
emeritus.
Colleagues remember him as being business-like and thorough in his academic
assignments, while alumni remember him as a knowledgeable and demanding instructor
who had
great affection for them as students and interest in their careers as alumni.
Expecting the most from students, he also gave them a great deal of individual
attention and entertained them frequently with his wife at their home. Jackson
always had a project in which he was engaged, frequently with students and
colleagues. Among his major publications were two edited publications, the
January 1966 (v.
14, no.3) issue Library Trends, devoted to library service to industry, and
Special Librarianship: A New Reader (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1980).
The volume
that he produced with his wife, Ruth, became the legacy of his career—Industrial
Information Systems: A Manual for Higher Managements and Their Information
Officer/Librarian Associates (Stroudsburg, Pa.: Dowden, Hutchinson & Ross, 1978). These latter
volumes are each found in over 300 libraries, many of them around the world.
He continued to conduct research and write for professional literature until
several months before his death. His final published work was a sketch of a
departed colleague, Audren Noiske Grosch, for the Dictionary of American
Library Biography,
2nd Supplement (Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2003).
At the end of his life, several recognitions meant a great deal to him. In
June 1994, he was awarded the Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Purdue
University.
Then, on its 150th anniversary in 2000, the Purdue library recognized him as
one of four ex-student associates in the library’s history who had become
heads of major libraries themselves. In addition, he was one of nineteen notable “Pioneers
in Information Science” who were recognized in October 1998, at a pre-conference
of the American Society for Information Science’s Special Interest Group
on the History and Foundations of Information Science in Pittsburgh.
Eugene B. Jackson died on Wednesday, July 16, 2003. He is survived by his wife
of 62 years, Ruth Lillian Whitlock Jackson, and his nephew, James M. Madison,
of Morgantown, West Virginia. Memorial contributions are designated for the Student
Loan Fund, School of Information, The University of Texas at Austin.
<signed>
Larry R. Faulkner, President
The University of Texas at Austin
<signed>
Sue Alexander Greninger, Secretary
The General Faculty
This memorial resolution was prepared by a special committee
consisting of Professors Donald G. Davis, Jr., Julie Hallmark, and Glynn
Harmon.
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