Laurence Bedford Heilprin

Laurence Bedford Heilprin (1906-1993) theorized information science.

Life

Laurence Bedford Heilprin was born on 26 May 1906 in New York city. Trained as a physicist he spent ten years at the National Bureau of Standards, including directing the Central Testing Laboratory for Proximity Fuses until the end of Second World War. He later worked for MIT's Operation Evaluation Group; Melpar, Inc., a federal contracting firm; and [[Documentation Incorporated|Documentation Inc. From 1958 to 1967 he was staff physicist at the Council on Library Resources.

Heilprin moved to the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1967 and had appointments in the School of Library and Information Services and in the Computer science Center. He taught courses in cybernetics and information science, even after his retirement in 1976 until 1992. He died on July 22, 1993 in College Park, MD.

Contributions

Heilprin explored fundamental aspects of information science throughout his career and stimulated others to do research and attempt to discover general science of information science. He launched the first Special Interest Groups of the American Society for Information Science, including notably the SIG Foundation of Information Science.

Publications

Several publications are listed in Google Scholar. [1]

"On the information problem ahead." American Documentation 12, no. 1 (1961): 6.
"Technology and the Future of the Copyright Principle." The Phi Delta Kappan 48, no. 5 (1967): 220-225.
On Access to Knowledge in the Social Sciences and Humanities, From the Viewpoint of Cybernetics and Information Science. Flushing, NY: City University of New York, Queens College, Library Science Dept. (Dec 1972). ERIC report ED 075 046. [2]
Toward foundations of information science, ed. by L. Heilprin. White Plains, NY: Knowledge Publications,, 1985. [3]
"Historical Note: Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST). Early Historical Perspective." Journal of the American Society for Information Science (1986-1998) 39, no. 4 (1988): 273-280.
"The library community at a technological and philosophical crossroads: Necessary and sufficient conditions for survival." Journal of the American Society for Information Science 42, no. 8 (1991): 566-573.
"Information and Thermodynamics: Toward a Closer Unification of Information Science with Other Sciences." Journal of the American Society for Information Science 46, no 8 (1995): 579-580.

Offices

American Documentation Institute. President, 1964-65
American Association for the Advancement of Science. Chairman of Section T.

Awards

American Documentation Institute. Watson Davis award, 1976; Award of Merit, 1976.
The University of Maryland confers a best student paper award named the Laurence Heilprin Award. [4]

Papers

University of Maryland Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives, College Park, MD. Laurence Heilprin papers. Coll. 0290-UA [6]