Rudolph Gjelsness (1894-1968)
Chair of the Department of Library Science 1940-64
Rudolph Gjelsness was born in 1894 in Reynolds, North Dakota, to parents who had emigrated from Norway to what was then the Dakota Territory. He grew up on his parents’ farm and as a child learned to speak and write Norwegian. Scandinavian literature remained an interest his entire life.
Following his graduation from the University of North Dakota, he worked one year as a high school principal before entering the University of Illinois Library School in 1917. His studies were interrupted by World War I, and from 1917 to 1919, he served in the U.S. Army Air Service of the American Expeditionary Force. While still in France, he was discharged in order to work under the auspices of the American Library Association as a reference librarian at the AEF University in Beaune, France.
Returning to the U.S. and to the University of Illinois, he earned his Bachelor of Library Science in 1920. He began his professional career as head of the Order Department at the University of Oregon Library. Positions followed at UC Berkeley, the University of Michigan, the New York Public Library and the University of Arizona. In 1924-25, he spent a stimulating year at the University of Oslo, studying Norwegian literature. In the following years, he translated many works of literature from Norwegian to English; his translation of Johan Falkberget’s “Lisbeth of Jarnfjeld” was published by W.W. Norton.
In 1937, he was recruited from the University of Arizona by William Warner Bishop, chair of the U-M Department of Library Science. He joined the department as a professor of library science and in 1940, following Bishop’s retirement, was named chair. During his tenure, he oversaw the creation of the two-year master’s degree program and introduced the PhD program.
He remained chair for more than two decades, until his retirement in 1964. He then returned to the University of Arizona Library as chief of the Special Collections Division, a post he was occupying at the time of his accidental death on Aug. 16, 1968. While in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on a special assignment to help found a new library school there, he was struck and killed by a car on his way to class.
Among his numerous contributions to the field of library science were service as treasurer of the ALA (1941-47), president of the Association of American Library Schools (1948-49), director of the Benjamin Franklin Library in Mexico City and library consultant to the president of the University of Baghdad, Iraq (1962-63).
Many honors came to Professor Gjelsness during his lifetime, including honorary doctorates by Luther College (Litt.D., 1953) and the University of North Dakota (LL.D., 1958). In 1954, he was the recipient of the first annual Beta Phi Mu (the national honorary library science fraternity) award for distinguished service to education for librarianship.
In 1999, he was named one of the 100 most important library leaders of the 20th century by American Libraries, along with two other early U-M library faculty, Margaret Mann and W.W. Bishop.