Dale Burdette Baker

Dale Baker

Dale Burdette Baker (1920-2005) pioneered computer techniques for chemical documentation.

Life

Dale Burdette Baker was born on September 19, 1920 in Bucyrus, OH. He earned a B.Ch.E. in 1942 and an M.Sc. in chemistry in 1948 from Ohio State University. While a student, Baker began working for the Chemical Abstracts Service of the American Chemical Society as an office boy. He worked with explosives at DuPont, 1942-1945, then returned to the Chemical Abstracts Service as Assistant editor 1946-57; Associate director 1958; and Director 1958-86. He also served as Acting Manager of the American Chemical Society Columbus, OH, office in 1972. He died 11 December 2005 in Columbus, OH.

Contributions

Baker was instrumental in developing an on-line system for Chemical Abstracts Service in the early 1980s. "... the major figure responsible for bringing into the computer age the processing, printing, storage, and dissemination of chemical information." Lepkowski (1986, 60).

Publications

• "Mission and Discipline Orientation in Scientific Abstracting and Indexing Services." With Scott Adams. Library Trends 16 (3) (Winter 1968): 307-322.
• "Communication or Chaos?" Science 169, no 3947 (Aug 21, 1970): 739-742
• USSR/USA scientific and technical information in perspective. Philadelphia : National Federation of Abstracting and Indexing Services, 1974.
• "History of abstracting at chemical abstracts service." With others. Journal of Chemical Information and Computer Sciences 20, no. 4 (1980): 193-201.
• "Chemical Abstracts Service's secondary chemical information services." Journal of chemical information and computer sciences 25, no 3 (Aug 1, 1985):186-191.
• "Chemical information flow across international borders: problems and solutions." Journal of Chemical Information and Computer Sciences 27, Issue 2 (May 1, 1987): 55-59.
• Oral history interview. Science History Institute. [1]

Awards

• Ohio State University. College of Engineering. Distinguished Alumnus Award, 1970.
• American Chemical Society. Patterson-Crane Award for contributions to the field of chemical literature, especially the documentation of chemistry, 1979; Herman Skolnik Award for contributions to chemical information, 1986.
• Ohio State University. Honorary PhD, 1986.
• Columbus [Ohio] Technology Council. Technology Man of Year, 1968.
• Ohio Science and Technology Hall of Fame, 2003.

Offices

• ASIS. President, 1975; Award of Merit, Counselor 1970-72; Executive committee 1971-72, 1973-76.
• NFAIS. President, 1962-63; Treasurer 1970-72.
• International Council of Scientific Unions Abstracting Board.
• UNESCO committees.

Further reading

• "Dale Baker Obituary." The Columbus Dispatch, Dec. 14, 2005. [2]
• Shively, Eric R. "Dale B. Baker 1920–2005." World Patent Information 28 (2006) 262–263,
• Lepkowski, Wil. "Dale Baker Retires as Director of Chemical Abstracts Service." ACS News (April 21, 1986): 60-62. [3]