Thursday, September 3, 2026

An Unsung Hero of Library Automation: Richard W. Boss

Since I revived this blog in 2025, I've written several posts about automation -- the efforts Pennsylvania libraries made to computerize cataloguing, circulation, and other functions. Library directors and staff often figure prominently in these stories, but I am finding that consultants are an important group of unsung heroes. This Spring and Summer, as I was doing site research at various institutions, the name of one consultant and company came up repeatedly: 

Richard W. "Dick" Boss and Information Systems Consultants, Inc. (ISCI). 

At some point, I'd like to delve into the reports that Boss/ISCI produced for Pennsylvania libraries, to better understand any challenges and opportunities that may have been particular to our state. But presently, I'm more curious about who Boss was, how he became interested in computing, and why he turned toward consulting. In other words, I want to know the person behind the work, and consider how technological developments opened up new opportunities for librarians like him. Fortunately, I was able to find some answers after just a few hours of digging. As it turns out, Boss headed several university libraries during the 1970s and he was a prolific writer.

Boss was born in Arnhem, the Netherlands, just before World War II. If I've found the correct immigration record, he came to the United States as child, likely with his parents, in 1948. By the 1950s, the family had made its way to Salt Lake City, Utah, where Boss attended East High School. At that early point in his life, he showed an interest in government and politics: he was in the Debate Club, Junior Statemen, and Latin Club. He went on to the University of Utah where he studied Political Science and worked as an assistant in the library. He must have enjoyed it, because he rose to the position of Stacks Manager, then earned an MLS from the University of Washington. In 1962, he returned to the U of U and became the Order Librarian -- what is known today as an acquisitions librarian. Within a few years, he rose to the position of Assistant (later Associate) Director, where he  was involved in planning and constructing a new library. He established Technical Services as a distinct department, and, significantly, the new building had the capacity for dial-access to online information systems. At roughly the same time, Provost Alfred C. Emery appointed Boss to the university's Computer Advisory Committee, which may have both utilized and enhanced his knowledge of new technologies.

During Boss's time at the U of U, he exhibited an interest in libraries beyond his own. In 1968, he served as the President of the Utah Library Association. That same year, he became Vice-President/President-Elect of the Bibliographical Center for Research (now part of Lyrasis), a large network of libraries in western states. In 1970, he won a Council of Library Resources grant that enabled him to conduct a study on audiovisual services in university libraries. He sent questionnaires to 75 institutions, visited 17, and generally found that AV collections and services were poor. Only 12 of the libraries collected films, slides, or other visuals (though, more often, there were AV centers elsewhere on campus). At the time, most listening facilities focused on music or language learning. An important take-away -- one that may have informed Boss's future work as a consultant -- was that AV equipment was typically poorly maintained, staff often did not have the expertise to fix or even use it, and that libraries typically relied on maintenance contracts with outside companies. All these issues left students highly dissatisfied. 

According to materials in Boss's biographical file at the U of U, it seems that he completed the necessary coursework for a Ph.D. in political science at UW, but departmental issues there discouraged him from completing his thesis. He believed that a doctoral degree was essential for leading an academic library and he considered pursuing a J.D. instead. As it turned out, another opportunity came his way. In 1970, after University of Tennessee Librarian William H. Jesse passed away unexpectedly, Boss applied for the position and was hired to fill it. During his tenure at UT, Boss reorganized existing departments into 3 divisions: administrative, public, and technical services. Pertaining to the technological side that would consume his later career, he created a Systems Department, and the library joined OCLC, which would have been a crucial step for automating cataloging operations. He also served on the Association of Research Libraries' Commission on Access, and the Tennessee State Library and Archives's Library Advisory Council. He retained memberships in the American Library Association and the American Society for Information Science, as well. 

Richard W. Boss ca. 1975, when he was appointed Librarian of Princeton University.
Published in American Libraries, April 1975.

I don't know what moved Boss to seek other job opportunities (UT has significant material within its library records, but I'm not about to visit Knoxville!). In 1975, though, he applied and was selected to lead Princeton University's library system. Initially, he was excited about working at one of the nation's most prestigious institutions, but his brief time at Princeton proved difficult. In Fall 1977, Princeton adopted a computerized circulation system that had been developed by 3M. Like other computerized systems, it saved enormous amount of time for circulation staff. Another attraction of 3M's system, specifically, was that it could handle course reserves readings -- the most heavily used items in most college libraries. Yet, what was promised, wasn't delivered. Costing more than $150,000 (roughly $850,000 in 2026 dollars), the system broke down more than a dozen times per day, had difficulty with title searches, and charged incorrect fines to borrowers. There was a "basic unreliability" about it that neither 3M nor a "special committee" of tech experts from Princeton's computer center could figure out. Fortunately, Princeton's contract with 3M stated that the library did not have to pay until the system was able to run 90% of the time for 30 days straight. But it doesn't seem like the success clock ever started. Problems persisted constantly throughout the academic year, ultimately forcing Boss and his staff to look into other systems and consider returning to manual circulation. Besides this ongoing technological stressor, there were others: there were budgetary struggles; a movement to unionize library staff had failed, leading to demoralization among some employees; and the library was experiencing extensive and costly thefts. Opening up to reporter Steven Bernstein, Boss admitted that he didn't foresee the "resistance" he encountered to the changes he tried to introduce. He announced his impending departure at the end of Fall 1977 semester and he left in June 1978, at the conclusion of the academic year. 

Whatever Boss's disappointments may have been at Princeton, he was able to parlay them into a second career that did enormous good for Pennsylvania libraries. He had provided consulting services for various institutions previously, but it appears that by 1979, he had made consulting his main line of work. He spent at least some of 1978/1979 on a book project, The Library Manager's Guide to Automation (Knowledge Industry Publications, 1979), a succinct, 106-page volume which provided foundational knowledge, described automation possibilities at the time, pointed out the risks, and advised on planning and implementation. In September 1979, Boss also published an important paper in the Journal of Library Automation, "General Trends in the Implementation of Automated Circulation Systems." It certainly wasn't his first publication, but, placed within the official publication of the American Library Association, it reached thousands of ALA members across the country. The article  provided a readable, general overview that non-technical professionals such as myself could understand. It also named leading vendors and library cooperatives, and it described technical and market trends that gave readers glimpse of a future they could plan for. The biographical blurb at the back of the Guide to Automation mentions that Boss had advised more than 30 institutions by that point -- the West Palm Beach Public (FL) Library among them. The article was written from Boston and listed Information Systems Consultants, Inc. as his sole institutional affiliation. So, he had clearly left behind Princeton, both institution and town, by the end of 1979. 

An ad for ISCI published in a consultants' directory in
American Libraries, January 1990.

In the following decades, Boss continued to write how-to materials directed toward practicing administrators and librarians, which was probably a smart move given the limited access to LIS research public libraries had at the time. Understanding that technology adoption involved financing, telecommunications upgrades, space allocation/design, and other issues beyond simply selecting a computer system, he developed titles that could guide libraries through each step:
After Boss became self-employed, his career becomes harder to trace, even in powerful newspaper databases. At some point in the 1980s, he and/or ISCI moved to the Washington, D.C. area, but I haven't found the reasons. What I *do* know, though, is that his business grew substantially during that time. According to biographical information provided within his publications, by 1984 he had provided consultation to more than 100 institutions; by 1990, the number had risen to more than 800. Among the 6 public libraries I've researched so far, I can confirm that he worked with the Lehigh Valley Association of Independent Colleges (included Easton Area Public Library, 1982); Harrisburg District Library Center (1985/1986); Lackawanna County Library System (1993); and Cumberland County Library System (1993-1997). Also, when I was searching Newspapers.com for information about automation in Scranton/Lackawanna County, I discovered that he had consulted at Osterhout Free Library in Wilkes-Barre (1996) as well. There were likely more Pennsylvania libraries that he worked with, given that the southern part of the Commonwealth was within easy driving distance from ISCI's base in Washington/Bethesda. 

Judging from the vibe of correspondence within the records of Cumberland County Library System (the largest cache I've found), as well as scattered documents within other Pennsylvania libraries' archives, Boss's work was greatly appreciated. In the 1980s and 1990s, with the development of microcomputers and turnkey integrated library systems, automation became viable in smaller institutions. But the industry's vocabulary and technical specifications could sound like a foreign language, especially to librarians who were more focused on library management and public services. The prospect of investing tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in a system that might turn out to be inefficient, or that would become unsupportable in just a few years' time, was intimidating. The stakes were even higher for library systems that were trying to computerize multiple locations. Thus, someone who understood the lingo, could assess an organization's needs, and help negotiate contracts -- that person was a godsend!

Because the scope of my project focuses on Pennsylvania in the 1950s-1990s, I don't have much reason to follow Boss's career beyond that point. But in the brief time I spent gathering low-hanging fruit for this post, it's worth nothing that I came across significant material in Library Technology Reports (1965-2022), an ALA subscription service that afforded longer writings with more technical details. Not every LTR issue is available digitally -- issues from 2001 to 2022 can be found on the publication's web site, and editions back to 1989 can be searched via ProQuest. Yet, from the limited online searching I did, it's clear Boss was a substantial contributor who kept up with emerging technologies. In ProQuest, I found his reports on automation among book/serials jobbers (March 1989), online public access catalogs (Sept. 1989), operating systems (Mar. 1991), model technology plans for libraries (Jan./Feb. 1998), outsourcing (Sept./Oct. 1998), and security technologies (May/June 1999), to mention some. His works on Digital Imaging (Jan./Feb. 2001), Ergonomics (Nov./Dec. 2001), Library Portals (Nov./Dec. 2002), and RFID (Nov./Dec. 2003) are freely available. ALAIR, ALA's institutional repository, also contains more than 60 pieces that he wrote for PLA Tech Notes, as well as writings or mentions in a variety of other ALA publications. It appears that he actively monitored developments (and helped colleagues make sense of them) right up until he retired in October 2013. His retirement date was a passage that was noted in the "Currents" section of American Libraries.  

If Boss is still living, he would be approaching 90 years old, and if he's able to remember back to the early days of library computerization, I bet he'd have fascinating stories to tell. Me personally, I am most interested in his Pennsylvania experiences, but his entire career is worth a deeper look. As a technical services librarian and department head in the 1960s, he witnessed the beginnings of automation and networks in college libraries, which adopted some technologies decades before most  public libraries did. As a library administrator in the 1970s, he handled the financial, human resource, space planning, and other implications that technology held for entire organizations. Then, in the 1980s and 1990s, he traveled to hundreds of institutions to help them navigate those issues. While it's not for me to write a biography of Richard W. Boss, I think someone should. It's hard for me to imagine someone else who had a more direct impact on the technology-empowered places that libraries became.   
  
For more on the early career of Richard W. Boss:




    
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