Background
Herbert Haviland Field was born of Quaker parents, Aaron and Lydia Seaman (Haviland) Field, in Brooklyn, New York.
(This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)
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Herbert Haviland Field was born of Quaker parents, Aaron and Lydia Seaman (Haviland) Field, in Brooklyn, New York.
His early education was at the Friends’ School and the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute.
Fie received the B. A. degree from Harvard in 1888, the M. A. in 1890, and the Ph. D. in 1891.
His graduate work was in the department of zoology but in connection with his own research he became deeply interested in the problem of simplifying and clarifying bibliographical methods.
After completing his work at Harvard, he went abroad, continuing his zoological studies at Freiburg, Leipzig, and Paris. During the years 1892-95, he published several important papers upon which his reputation as a zoologist rests, but his interest centered more and more clearly in bibliography, and primarily in the problem of how to make the essential contents of current zoological literature available to the workers in that rapidly expanding field of research.
Wherever he went he took occasion to confer with teachers, investigators, and librarians, seeking advice and encouragement in the formation and development of his plans. He recognized in Dewey’s decimal system of classification of knowledge for library purposes a most valuable aid and by combining it with a system of index cards, he believed he saw the solution of his problem.
By the prompt publication and distribution of such cards, workers in the zoological laboratories of the world could be kept continually in touch with the current literature bearing on their particular problems. Obviously a central publication office where the indexing should be done, and the cards printed, and from which they could be distributed, was a prime requisite.
After careful consideration, Field selected Zürich, Switzerland, as the most suitable place for such an office and there in 1895, he established the “Concilium Bibliographicum, ” with which his name has ever since been associated.
His greatest difficulty was finding the financial support for what was necessarily an expensive undertaking, of interest to a very limited constituency. He gave generously from his own by no means abundant resources, and he received subventions from Switzerland, from Zürich, and from various scientific foundations and organizations.
Throughout his whole life, however, his work was hampered by inadequate financial support.
He was conspicuous for orderliness and pertinacity, qualities without which he could never have established and maintained the Concilium.
(This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)
Field was a man of striking appearance and personality, with unusual linguistic ability. He was also gifted with an exceptional memory, manifested not only in an ability to quote freely from literature and conversations but especially in the power of reproducing music to which he had been a listener.
In 1903 he was married in London to Nina Eschwege and established a home in Zürich.