David A. Kronick (October 5, 1917 – February 12, 2006) was a

librarian A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users. The role of the librarian has changed much over time, ...

who researched the history of

scholarly communication Scholarly communication involves the creation, publication, dissemination and discovery of academic research, primarily in peer-reviewed journals and books. It is “the system through which research and other scholarly writings are created, evalu ...

. He was once called a "bibliographic archaeologist"."David Kronick’s ‘Guide’ Unearths the Bones of 17th- and 18th-Century Scientific Journals
by

Eugene Garfield Eugene Eli Garfield (September 16, 1925 – February 26, 2017) was an American linguist and businessman, one of the founders of bibliometrics and scientometrics. He helped to create ''Current Contents'', ''Science Citation Index'' (SCI), ''Journ ...

Current Comments, Volume 15, Number 27, July 6, 1992 He was a Fellow of the

Medical Library Association The Medical Library Association (MLA) is a nonprofit educational organization with more than 3,400 health sciences information professional members and partners worldwide. History Founded on May 2, 1898, by four librarians, including Marcia ...

and the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

, and achieved the rank of Distinguished Member in the Academy of Health Information Professionals.

Education

Kronick was born in

Connellsville Connellsville is a city in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, United States, southeast of Pittsburgh and away via the Youghiogheny River, a tributary of the Monongahela River. It is part of the Pittsburgh Metro Area. The population was 7,637 at th ...

, Pennsylvania and grew up in

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

. He earned his BA in 1939 and in 1940 his BS in Library Science, both from

Western Reserve University Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

.MLA Fellows: Kronick, David A. (PhD)
by Mary M. Langman, MLA In 1956, he completed his PhD at

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

's Library School His dissertation was on the history of the scientific journal from the 17th to the 18th century; he pursued this topic throughout his career.

Career

He was in the

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

, from 1941 to 1946 and in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

he served as a hospital supply officer, eventually as captain.Bowden, Virginia M., and Charles W. Sargent. �
David Abraham Kronick, AHIP, FMLA, 1917–2006
” Journal of the Medical Library Association 94.4 (2006): 484–485. He then joined Western Reserve University Medical School as a librarian from 1946–1949, before moving to the University of Chicago. During his PhD studies he was an assistant at the

National Library of Medicine The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), operated by the United States federal government, is the world's largest medical library. Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NLM is an institute within the National Institutes of Health. Its ...

reference department (1953–1955). In 1955 he joined

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

Medical Library, where he worked until 1959. He then moved to the Cleveland Medical Library, which he directed from 1959 to 1964. He then returned to the National Library of Medicine where he was chief of the Reference Division from 1964 to 1965. From 1965 to 1984, he served as (the first) library director of the Medical School of the

University of Texas at San Antonio The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) is a public research university in San Antonio, Texas. With over 34,000 students across its four campuses spanning 758 acres, UTSA is the largest university in San Antonio and the eighth-largest by ...

Legacy

A fellowship bearing his name was established under the aegis of the

in 2002, to support travel to three or more North American medical libraries for the study of health

information management Information management (IM) concerns a cycle of organizational activity: the acquisition of information from one or more sources, the custodianship and the distribution of that information to those who need it, and its ultimate disposal throug ...

. This memorializes Kronick's love of travel.

Selected bibliography

* ''Scientific and Technical Periodicals of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries''. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press; 1991. * ''The Literature of the Life Sciences: Reading, Writing, Research''. Philadelphia, PA: ISI Press; 1985. * ''A history of scientific and technical periodicals''. New York, NY: Scarecrow Press; 1962. 2nd ed. 1976.

Awards

* Visiting Historical Scholar,

, 1988–1989 * Medical Library Association Ida and George Eliot Award, 1987 for his book ''The Literature of the Life Sciences: Reading, Writing, Research.'' * Medical Library Association Fellow, 1985Walter PL, ed
Presentation of awards. Proceedings of the 95th annual meeting
Medical Library Association, New York, New York, May 1985. Bull Med Lib Assoc. 1996 Jan;84(1):146–7. * Medical Library Association Janet Doe Lectureship, 1980 *

Council on Library Resources The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) is an American independent, nonprofit organization. It works with libraries, cultural institutions, and higher learning communities on developing strategies to improve research, teaching, an ...

, Fellowship, 1972 * Fellow of the

, 1965Kronick, David A. (PhD)
Medical Library Association biography by Mary M. Langman, M.S.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kronick, David A. 1917 births 2006 deaths American librarians Scholarly communication University of Chicago Graduate Library School alumni Case Western Reserve University alumni United States Army personnel of World War II University of Michigan staff University of Texas at Austin staff