Maurice Falcolm Tauber

Background

Tauber was born in Virginia in 1908. He was the son of Abraham Albert Tauber, a tailor, and Leona Miller, a seamstress. Both parents were immigrants from eastern Europe. When Tauber was six, his father died. Starting at age fourteen he helped support his mother and siblings by working part-time as a newsboy. This set the pattern for his lifelong belief in the mutually enriching nature of hard work and study. In 1925, Tauber's family moved to West Philadelphia.

Education

In Philadelphia he graduated from high school second in his class (1926), then enrolled at Temple University. Upon graduation in 1930 with a B. S. in English and sociology, Tauber enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania Law School on a scholarship. After three months, the onset of pleurisy with incipient tuberculosis required half a year's rest.

He completed a B. S. in library service at Columbia University in 1934. He then enrolled in the Master's in Education program at Temple (awarded in 1939); his thesis, was titled "Moving Picture Censorship in the State of Pennsylvania. " Tauber took a characteristically objective approach while pointing out the potential dangers to democracy that censorship entails. He affirmed "the liberal ideal of Americans to see all sides of a question, whether one believed in it or not. " In 1938, Tauber began his studies for the Ph. D. at the University of Chicago's Graduate Library School. Tauber completed his Ph. D. in 1941. His dissertation, "Reclassification and Recataloging in College and University Libraries, " derived from experience at Temple plus extensive historical and survey work. He argued that large academic and research libraries should shift from the Dewey classification system to the one used at the Library of Congress. One national standard could minimize duplication and variation of effort. He used these arguments in many subsequent publications and proposals, persuading the bulk of large academic and research libraries in the United States (and some abroad) to adopt the Library of Congress classification. He saw technical standards as a means for clarification, cooperation, and centralized efficiencies of scale.

Career

His illness finished his savings and his legal studies, and in the fall of 1931 Tauber was working full-time at Temple's library in the acquisitions and cataloging departments. He became his generation's preeminent authority in these specialties, which he combined with related library book-processing activities and called "technical services. " Tauber worked in Temple's library until 1938, progressing to the head of the Catalog Department in 1935.

In 1939 he became research assistant to Dean Louis Round Wilson, organizing his papers, doing biographical research, and, most important, surveying many academic libraries around the country in preparation for their joint definitive text, The University Library (1945). The survey techniques that Wilson taught him formed the basis for Tauber's many years of consulting at hundreds of libraries. In gratitude Tauber wrote Louis Round Wilson (1967).

In 1939, Tauber published his first major scholarly article in the prestigious Library Quarterly. He wrote of his efforts at library cooperation in Philadelphia through building a "union catalog" of all holdings in the region. He focused on many of the technical problems but highlighted the importance of this cooperative effort "to aid scholars. " He early championed centralization of technical services and coordination of multiple types of libraries.

Soon after graduation Tauber obtained the dual assignment of instructor at Chicago's Graduate Library School, and chief of cataloging in the library. In addition he continued to survey and consult for other libraries, including the libraries at Columbia University. This led to his appointment there in 1944 with another dual assignment: assistant professor at the School of Library Service and assistant director of technical services for the library. By 1949 he had become a full professor, and from 1954 to 1976 was the Melvil Dewey professor of library service. He taught an entire generation of librarians, showing particular solicitude for foreign Ph. D. students. He collaborated with seven student "associates" to write his magnum opus, the encyclopedic textbook Technical Services in Libraries (1954).

From 1948 to 1962, Tauber edited one of the principal journals of librarianship, College and Research Libraries. He promoted many studies and articles designed to broaden the scope of the profession while applying principles of scientific research and management to its operations. In keeping with his "work-study" beliefs, Tauber continued to survey individual libraries. Several of these studies were monumental in scope, particularly the ones at Cornell (1948) and Columbia (1958), and especially his exhaustive review of over 150 libraries in Australia while on a Fulbright Fellowship in 1961. This survey alone, comprising three large volumes along with extensive popular press coverage in Australia, contributed significantly to the development of improved library service for a whole continent.

When Australian prime minister Robert Menzies visited the White House in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson invited Tauber to be present. One important feature of Tauber's surveys and consulting was that they frequently led to increased funding and new building designs for libraries, as well as improvements in technical processes. After twenty-five years of such experience, he solidified this approach at a conference he organized in 1965 on library surveys (published 1967).

In 1963 he showed an interest in the beginnings of computerization by coediting Book Catalogs, describing a computer-produced alternative to the traditional card catalog based on machine-readable records. His last monograph was Library Binding Manual (1972), a highly technical review of the binding industry and its standards for libraries.

Tauber's interests were extensive, and so were his contacts in the library field. He wrote many biographical sketches, ever recognizing the achievements of others. Starting in 1966, he began to review his own accomplishments and had his archival management students begin to sort and index parts of his voluminous correspondence, amounting to some 75, 000 items. This collection documents his thorough research and helpfulness in all areas of librarianship. In the midst of many ongoing publication projects and library surveys, Tauber died in New York City.

Achievements

• The tributes of his colleagues included the endowment in 1981 of the Maurice Tauber Foundation to sponsor lectures in librarianship and information science. Though the bulk of his career preceded the computer age, his thoroughness of detail and specification of technical standards did much to lay the foundation for the coming age of library automation.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Technical Services In Libraries Acquisitions Cataloging Classification Binding Photographic Reproducation And Circulation Operations

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

  • The Subject Analysis Of Library Materials

    (Contributing Authors Include Wyllis E. Wright, Leo LaMont...)

  • Book catalogs

    (Book by Tauber, Maurice F., Feinberg, Hilda)

  • TAUBER: LOUIS ROUND WILSON (CLOTH)

Connections

In 1932, Tauber married Rose Begner, and they had two sons together.

Father:

Abraham Albert Tauber

Mother:

Leona Miller

Spouse:

Rose Begner