Eugene Barnum Power

Eugene Power (1905-1993) was a US pioneer of microfilm.

Life

Eugene Barnum Power was born June 4, 1905 in Traverse City, Michigan. He received BA and MBA degrees from the University of Michigan.

In 1930 Power joined Edwards Brothers,Inc., and became Vice-President. He left to found University Microfilms, Inc., in 1938. He died November 6, 1993.

In 1962 University Microfilms was acquired by the Xerox Corporation. Power continued to work for Xerox until his mandatory retirement in 1970 at the age of 65. The company he founded is now ProQuest.

Contributions

Eugene Power was involved in the founding in 1937 and later development of the American Documentation Institute, which was renamed American Society for Information Science, later Association for Information Science and Technology.

Power founded University Microfilm Inc. in 1938 and developed ""micropublishing." He photographed all British books printed before 1640 with a microfilm camera he invented and sold positive film copies to libraries wishing to have access to these rare, often unique, books. With the ability to generate print copies on paper the company helped to make out-of-print books available.

Working from London, he set in motion a project that photo- graphed countless manuscripts in British museums, saving them destruction in the Blitz. Power was asked by the Office of the US Coordinator of Information to help film enemy documents obtained by the British so that they could be shipped to the US during World War II. He continued as microfilm expert with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). He also reproduced and sent to America for intelligence analysis various newspapers, books, periodicals, and Allied agents acquired in occupied Europe.

Between 1939 and 1945, Power advised a Rockefeller funded project to microfilm important British manuscripts at Oxford and Cambridge.

In May 1942, Power brought all of the different Allied agencies interested in enemy publications import together and established the Executive Committee of the Aslib Microfilm Service (AMS). AMS was core of what Frederick Kilgour later developed as the OSS's microfilm supply of strategic German scientific publications.

He helped develop a Xerox copier that worked directly from microfilm negatives. The company became the publisher of record for all U.S. dissertations in 1951.

Publications

• "The Manuscript Copying Program in England." American archivist, 7, no 1 (1944): 28-32. [1]
• Edition of one : the autobiography of Eugene B. Power, founder of University Microfilms. Ann Arbor, Mich. : University Microfilms International, 1990.

Honors

Power was made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth in 1977.

Further reading

• Power, Eugene. Edition of one : the autobiography of Eugene B. Power, founder of University Microfilms. Ann Arbor, Mich. : University Microfilms International, 1990.
• Power, Philip H. "Eugene Barnum Power (4 June 1905-6 December 1993)." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 139, No. 3 (Sep., 1995): 300-304. Obituary. [2]
• "Eugene Power." Wikipedia [3]

Papers

University of Michigan. Bentley Historical Library, Ann Arbor. Eugene Power papers, 1937-1993. 145 linear feet & 1 vol. Finding aid [4].