Oral Histories

Interview of Robert G. Vosper

UCLA library director and director of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library.
Subtitle:
Libraries and the Inquiring Mind
Series:
Z: Orphan Interviews pre 1999
Topic:
UCLA and University of California History
UCLA Librarians
Biographical Note:
UCLA library director and director of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library.
Interviewer:
Treleven, Dale E.
Interviewee:
Vosper, Robert G.
Supporting Documents:
Records relating to the interview are located in the office of the UCLA Library's Center for Oral History Research.
Language:
English
Copyright:
Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library.
Abstract:
Childhood in Portland, Oregon; early interest in books; attends University of Oregon; majors in classics; attends University of California, Berkeley, School of Librarianship; Sydney B. Mitchell; works in the university library; gender makeup of the library profession; Everett T. Moore; reorganizes the library of the Pacific Union Club in San Francisco; accepts a job at Stanford University; Nathan Van Patten; book collecting; moves to Los Angeles; meets Lawrence Clark Powell at UCLA; works with the Academic Senate library committee at UCLA; sets up branch library system; Stafford L. Warren; Louise M. Darling; difficulties with L. Dale Coffman over the Law Library; ordering books from postwar European nations; implementation of the Farmington Plan; establishing central cataloging; origin of the Department of Special Collections; the emerging distinction between professional and nonprofessional library staff; the Friends of the UCLA Library; Robert and Blanche Campbell; Powell's personal and administrative style; library management versus business management; the Library Association of the University of California; trip to Mexico City to discuss microfilming Mexican church and government archives; the Benjamin Franklin Library in Mexico City; moves to Lawrence to become director of libraries at the University of Kansas (KU); meets Franklin D. Murphy; bringing KU medical library and law library under a central administration; insistence on librarians' membership in the Academic Senate; acquiring various collections for the KU library; building a special collections department; librarians Vosper hired at KU; hiring African American library staff; brief listing in lieu of full cataloging; Governor George Docking; organizes the first Kansas chapter of the American Association of University Professors; receives Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships for study projects in Europe; travels in England; searches for antiquarian books in England; making library connections in Europe; returns to UCLA; Charles E. Young;