Bernard M. Fry

Bernard M. Fry (1915-1994) was a US documents specialist and information science educator.

Bernard M. Fry (far left)

Life

Bernard Mitchell Fry earned bachelor's degree in history in 1937 and a master's degree in political science in 1939 from Indiana University, Bloomington. He later received a master's degree in library science from Catholic University in 1952 and doctoral work at American University from 1958 to 1963.

Fry's first professional job was working as a librarian and instructor at Mary Washington College from 1939-1940. From 1941-1942 he served as Chief Bibliographer of the Legislative Reference Service at the Library of Congress. This was followed by work for the US Army Corps of Engineers on the Manhattan Project from 1942-1946. Fry worked for the Atomic Energy Commission from 1947-1955 as Chief Librarian for the Technical Information Service, and from 1956-1958 served as its Director. From 1959-1963, Fry served as the Deputy Head at the Office of Science Information Service of the National Science Foundation. Fry was the Director of the Clearinghouse for Scientific and Technical Information, Department of Commerce from 1963-1967. In 1967, Fry was appointed Dean of the Graduate Library School at Indiana University, and he served in this post until 1980. Upon his retirement in 1984 Fry became Professor Emeritus of Library Science. He died March 4, 1994.

Contributions

• Dean of School of Library and Information Science at Indiana University (1967-84).
• Founding editor, Government publications review, 1973-1984.
• Editor, Information storage and retrieval, later named Information processing and management (1968-1984).

Publications

Hernon (1986, pp 16-19) lists 40 publications.

• Publishers and libraries : a study of scholarly and research journals. With Herbert S. White and Marjorie Shepley. Lexington, MA : Lexington Books, 1976.
• Government publications, their role in the national program for library and information services. Washington, DC: U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1978.
• Impact of economic pressures on American libraries and their decisions concerning scholarly and research journal acquisition and retention ; final report. With Herbert S. White. [Washington, DC]: National Science Foundation, Division of Science Information, 1978.

Offices

• American Documentation Institute, President, 1967.

Awards

• American Library Association. 1983 James Bennett Child Award for documents librarianship, 1983,
• American Society for Information Science, Award of Merit, 1986; Book of the year, 1976.
• Indiana University, Bloomington, School of Library & Information Science. Louise Maxwell outstanding alumnus Award, 1986.

Further reading

• Hernon, Peter. "Bernard Mitchell Fry: A distinguished librarian and educator." Government publications review 13, no 1 (1986): 3-19.
• White, Herbert S. "Fry, Bernard Mitchell (1915-1994)." Dictionary of American library biography: Second supplement, ed. by Donald G. Davis. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2003, pp 96-98.
• [Finding aid]. Indiana University Archives [1]

Papers

• Indiana University Archives, Bloomington, IN. Bernard M. Fry papers. 1930-1993, bulk 1958-1984. 22.2 cubic feet (23 boxes). [2] Also video interview, 1984. Auxiliary Library FacilityZ720.F79 A5 1984. Also an interview (3 cassettes, 270 minutes) in: Oral history interviews of Careers in Librarianship Oral History Project, 1993. University Archives University Archives. Project No. 32. [3]