Allen Kent
| Allen Kent | |
|---|---|
| Born |
October 24, 1921 New York City |
| Died |
May 1, 2014 (aged 92) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| Occupation | information scientist |
| Years active | 1952–1992 |
Allen Kent (October 24, 1921 – May 1, 2014) was an information scientist.
Early life
He was born in New York City.[1] At City College of New York he earned a degree in chemistry.[2] During World War II, he served in the Army Air Corps.[2] After the war, he worked on a classified project at MIT in mechanized document encoding and search.[1]
Career
In 1955, he helped found the Center for Documentation Communication Research at Western Reserve University.[3] This was "the first academic program in the field of mechanized information retrieval, first using cards, then utilizing new reel-to-reel tape technology."[1] In the same year he introduce the measures of precision and recall in Perry, Kent & Berry (1955). In 1959, he wrote an article for Harper's magazine entitled, "A Machine That Does Research" which provided one of the first incites in mainstream media about how Americans lives can change due to electronic information technology.[4] He joined the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh in 1963, where in 1970 he began the Department of Information Science.[5] He retired from the university in 1992.[5] At the time of his death, he was Distinguished Service Professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh[5] The school named a scholarship after him.[6]
Selective bibliography
- Perry, James W.; Kent, Allen; Berry, Madeline M. (1955). "Machine literature searching X. Machine language; factors underlying its design and development". American Documentation. 6 (4): 242–254. doi:10.1002/asi.5090060411.
- "A Machine That Does Research," (April 1959), Harper's Magazine
- Information Analysis and Retrieval, 1962
- The Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science
- The Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology
- The Encyclopedia of Microcomputers
Awards
- 1968 Eastman Kodak Award for significant contributions to the Science of Information Technology
- 1977 Award of Merit from ASIS[7]
- 1980 Best Information Science Book from ASIS[8]
References
- 1 2 3 Dr. Allen Kent, Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Passed Away at 92 Years ASIS&T obituary, 2014
- 1 2 Obituary: Allen Kent / A pioneer in field of information sciences: Oct. 24, 1921 - May 1, 2014 By Molly Born Pittsburgh Post-Gazette May 3, 2014
- ↑ Case Western Reserve University history, in Dr. Thomas J. Froehlich's Index of Organizations involved in information science
- ↑ "Obituary: Allen Kent / A pioneer in field of information sciences". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 2017-02-28.
- 1 2 3 Obituary: Allen Kent The University Times, University of Pittsburgh, May 15, 2014.
- ↑ iSchool remembers Professor Allen Kent University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences May 2, 2014.
- ↑ ASIS&T: Award of Merit
- ↑ ASIS&T Best Information Science Book Award past winners, for The Structure and Governance of Library Networks by Allen Kent and Thomas Galvin
Archival Materials
- Archival materials 1952–1988 are held by the University of Pittsburgh per Worldcat holdings record: Allen Kent papers. 1952–1988