University of Michigan School of Information

Wallace Bonk (1923-1979)

A headshot of Wallace Bonk

Chair of the Department of Library Science 1964-67

Wallace J. Bonk was born on March 13, 1923, in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. He was a graduate of the University of Minnesota, receiving his BA (magna cum laude) in 1947 and his MA in English in 1949. In 1948, he married Joyce (Johnson) Bonk, whom he had met at the University of Minnesota.

His professional career began as an assistant professor of English at East Texas State University (now part of Texas A&M), where he taught from 1949 to 1952. In 1952, he entered the AMLS degree program at the University of Michigan while holding a library fellowship in the University Catalog Department. He continued to hold this position as he moved directly into the doctoral program upon completion of his master's degree requirements in 1954. He was awarded the PhD degree in 1956.

From 1952 to 1956, Joyce Bonk worked as a librarian at the old Ann Arbor Public High School at the corner of State Street and Huron. In 1956, she joined the staff of the William H. Clements Library as assistant curator of books, where she remained until her retirement in 1992.

In 1956, Wallace Bonk joined the faculty of U-M and moved rapidly through the academic ranks from instructor to professor, the latter promotion coming in 1966. In 1964, he succeeded Rudolph H. Gjelsness to the chairmanship of the Department of Library Science. He was known for his wit, which came through not only in conversation but in his interdepartmental memos. At home, he had a letterpress in the basement, which he used to publish poetry. 

After suffering a heart attack in 1967, he ended his term as department chair but returned to teaching. In 1975, he began a medical leave, which continued until the date of his death on July 18, 1979.

Of his several publications, “Building Library Collections,” which he co-authored with Mary Duncan Carter in 1959, brought Bonk's name to the attention of librarians and publishers throughout the world. This volume served to acquaint thousands of students with the principles of the selection, acquisition and maintenance of library collections. Reference work, bibliography and the history of printing and publishing were his other major areas of research and publication.

A bequest of Joyce Bonk, who died in 2012, funds the Joyce Bonk Assistantship at the Clements Library and the Wallace and Joyce Bonk Scholarship Fund at UMSI.