Skip to main content

John P. McGowan (1926-2006) Papers

 Collection
Identifier: 9/4/3
The John P. McGowan Papers consist of 1 box, spanning the years 1956, when McGowan first came to work for Northwestern University as the Head Librarian for the Technological Institute Library, to 2006, when McGowan passed away. The series is divided into biographical information, general correspondence, papers, and speeches. For the records of McGowan's career as University Librarian, 1971-1992, see Series 9/1/11.

Biographical Information fills five folders. General Biographical information includes the dated material includes John P. McGowan's original application for the Technological library in 1956, information related to his profile in Who's Who in America, retirement announcements, and notice of his death. Several undated drafts of his vitae and biographical data are filed at the end of the folder.

Press Releases, Clippings, and Obituaries span the years 1956-2006 and include articles which mention or cite John P. McGowan, as well as several faculty e-mails sent out after his death, and newspaper obituaries, including those from the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times, and an article in the Northwestern University Library's Footnotes publication.

Separate files contain McGowan's 1985 Appointment Book and calendar, correspondence and member lists for the “Flying Scot” sailing club to which he belonged, and invitations to parties (mostly University-related) hosted by Mr. and Mrs. McGowan.

General Correspondence, arranged chronologically, consists of personal correspondence (incoming and outgoing) dating between 1971 and 1989.

Papers, Publications, and Notes, spanning the years 1971 to 1979, are arranged chronologically, with undated materials at the end. Materials include article drafts and reprints, including some handwritten and typed notes.

A folder of general Speeches and Lectures, spanning the years 1972 to 1983, with many undated materials, includes handwritten or draft or typed copies of presentations and introductions made by McGowan at conferences or other events. This folder also includes an outline for a presentation McGowan gave to MIDLNET (The Midwest Region Library Network).

Papers which are accompanied by extensive notes, drafts, or correspondence, have been foldered separately by the title of the paper. These consist of “The Development of NOTIS” (1976-1983), “Venezuela Project” (1978-1981, including general information on SALALM [Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials], where the paper was presented, McGowan's travel information to the program, and correspondence), “The Academic Library within a National Information Policy Toward the White House Conference and Beyond” (1978), and “Private Paper for the Council on Library Resources on Research Libraries and Library Education” (1983).

Dates

  • 1956-2006

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

None.

Extent

1.00 Boxes

Abstract

John Patrick McGowan was born May 11, 1926 in New York City, and raised by his mother. McGowan was Northwestern University Library's first Associate Librarian. He went on to be head librarian, a position he held for 20 years. Under McGowan's leadership, NUL developed NOTIS, an online library system which revolutionized creation and presentation of catalog records for research materials. McGowan retired from NUL in 1992. He died on February 4, 2006.
The John P. McGowan Papers consist of 1 box, spanning the years 1956, when McGowan first came to work for Northwestern University as the Head Librarian for the Technological Institute Library, to 2006, when McGowan passed away. The series is divided into biographical information, general correspondence, papers, and speeches. For the records of McGowan's career as University Librarian, 1971-1992, see Series 9/1/11.

Method of Acquisition

The John McGowan Papers were separated from Series 9/1/11, the Records of University Librarian John P. McGowan. Additional materials were incorporated from the University Archives' Faculty Biographical File.

Related Materials

For more about John McGowan's work at the Northwestern University Library, see Series No. 9/1/11

Separated Materials

None.

Processing Information

Veronica A. House, February 28, 2007
Title
Guide to the John P. McGowan (1926-2006) Papers
Author
Veronica A. House
Date
04/02/2009
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Repository Details

Part of the Northwestern University Archives Repository

Contact:
Deering Library, Room 110
1970 Campus Dr.
Evanston IL 60208-2300 US
847-491-3354
https://findingaids.library.northwestern.edu/repositories/6/resources/146
findingaids.library.northwestern.edu
crawl=CC-MAIN-2020-05
36922
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:DBEKLFYWBMNO5QTF2OZ5FECEF5ZIAS32
<urn:uuid:6f2d9af6-fbfe-4af4-a403-91e365c345ba>
2020-01-23T05:23:44Z
97.107.130.248
text/html
sha1:N45WT7HSR2CDPRIZ44VBBPSFATMMNDP2
<urn:uuid:63ecaaf7-4cc0-4ad1-9669-fe467c506b1d>
https://findingaids.library.northwestern.edu/repositories/6/resources/146
response
<urn:uuid:8a98543b-dec5-4844-b47b-6140a170a494>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2020-05
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for January 2020
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-196.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.16 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.1-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: http://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/