Librarian/author Powell dies at 94

Abstract

[Lawrence Clark Powell] began his career at the Los Angeles Public Library. He joined UCLA in 1934, as a junior assistant in acquisitions. Moving up to become only the second chief librarian in the UCLA library's history, he built a collection of 17th-century materials and increased the overall collection from 400,000 to 1.5 million volumes. From 1944 to 1966 he served as director of the Clark Memorial Library at UCLA.

Headnote

Scholar of Western writing built UCLA library and library school

Lawrence Clark Powell, a librarian, author, and bibliographer known for his contributions to the UCLA library and library school, died in his sleep on March 14 in Tucson, AZ. He was 94.

Powell began his career at the Los Angeles Public Library. He joined UCLA in 1934, as a junior assistant in acquisitions. Moving up to become only the second chief librarian in the UCLA library's history, he built a collection of 17th-century materials and increased the overall collection from 400,000 to 1.5 million volumes. From 1944 to 1966 he served as director of the Clark Memorial Library at UCLA. He was also founding dean of the UCLA School of Library Service from 1959 until his retirement in 1966, at which time the undergraduate library at UCLA was named in his honor.

He moved to Tucson as professor in residence at what is now the School of Information Resources and Library Science at the University of Arizona (UA). Powell spent his retirement writing novels, two autobiographies, some nonfiction, and several bibliographies.

An obituary in the March 20 Arizona Daily Star called Powell the "dean of American librarians." Although his books fill nearly three bookcases in the UA archives, "his influence cannot be measured by the books he wrote," said author and friend Charles Bowden. "There was a vast throng of people he produced. He stamped them all with a sense of mission, a sense that the most important thing was to open a library, without censors and judgments, just culture, information, and literature."

John Berry, LI editor-in-chief, was Powell's editor at R.R. Bowker when he published Fortune and Friendship, a 1968 autobiography. "He jolted me awake about librarianship," Berry said. Another friend said simply that Powell was a humanist. Powell referred to himself as a "bibliotherapist" and a "bookman."

A memorial service was to be held April 8 at the Singing Winds Bookstore and Ranch, Benson, AZ.-Reported by Susan DiMattia