Ralph Parker

Punchcard

Works

Ralph Halstead Parker was born in Bertram, Texas, in 1909 and died in 1990. He was a pioneer in the implementation of punched-card circulation at the University of Texas, which he described in "The Punched Card Method in Circulation Work" (1936). After stints at the University of Chicago's Graduate Library School, Pomona College, and the University of Georgia, he was drafted into World War II, where he worked with IBM punched cards to modernize the records and procedures of the War Department. In 1947, he was hired as the University of Missouri's university librarian. There, he expanded the use of punched cards for library automation, attracting observers from around the world.

In 1965, he and Frederick Kilgour served as consultants for the Committee of Librarians of the Ohio College Association, who were seeking to combat the rising price of materials through resource sharing. Instead of creating a shared catalog of holdings, they suggested establishing "an effective, shared-cataloguing program based on a central computer store...[which] would eventually become OCLC, the world's largest consortium, now sharing catalogue records with 43,559 libraries in 86 countries" (University of Missouri Archives, 2003). He founded the University of Missouri's School of Library and Information Science in 1966, requiring all students to take a course in library automation.

Publications

• LaBerge, R., & Parker, R. H. (1966). Automated catalog card production system manual : system devised by Ralph H. Parker . [publisher not identified].
• Parker, “The Punched Card Method in Circulation Work,” Library Journal 61 (December 1936): 903–5.
• Parker, R. H. (1952). Library applications of punched cards : a description of mechanical systems. American Library Association.
• Report to the Committee of Librarians of the Ohio College Association. With Frederick G. Kilgour. 1965. Repr. in Kilgour, F. G. Collected papers: The OCLC years. Dublin, OH: OCLC, 1984, pp 1-7. Report that led to OCLC.
• Parker, R. H. (1968). A feasibility study for a joint computer center for five Washington, D.C. university libraries ; final report. Consortium of Universities of Metropolitan Washington, D.C.
• Parker, R. H. (1969). Computers, communication and library co-operation. International Library Review, 1(3), 309-315.
• Parker, R. H. (1974). A stochastic analysis of books circulated from Elmer Ellis Library : University of Missouri-Columbia, 1972-1973. [publisher not identified].

Further Reading

• Beatty, V. and Beatty, W. (1991, April). "Ralph Halstead Parker, 1909-1990." Bulletin of the Medical Library Association 79(2) p. 259-261. [1]
• Burns, C.S. (2014). "Academic libraries and automation. A historical reflection on Ralph Halstead Parker." portal: Libraries and the Academy, 14(1), 87-102. [2]
• Mina Hoyer. The History of Automation in the University of Missouri Library, 1947–1963. Master’s thesis, Indiana University, 1965.
• University of Missouri Archives (2003). Of Libraries and Computers. [3] Includes links to audio files of five interviews with Parker.