Allen Kent

Allen Kent (October 24, 1921 – May 1, 2014) was an American information scientist.

Early life He was born in New York City. At City College of New York, he earned a degree in chemistry. During World War II, he served in the United States Army Air Forces. This was "the first academic program in the field of mechanized information retrieval, first using cards, then utilizing new reel-to-reel tape technology." He joined the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh in 1963, where in 1970 he began the Department of Information Science. The school named a scholarship after him.

Selective bibliography

"A Machine That Does Research," (April 1959), Harper's Magazine Information Analysis and Retrieval, 1962 The Structure and Governance of Library Networks with Thomas J. Galvin. New York: Marcel Dekker, 1979. The Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science (1968-2003). Edited by Allen Kent, Harold Lancour and Jay E. Daily. New York: Marcel Dekker. The Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology The Encyclopedia of Microcomputers

Awards 1980 Best Information Science Book for The Structure and Governance of Library Networks from ASIS 1977 Award of Merit from American Society for Information Science and Technology 1968 Eastman Kodak Award for significant contributions to the Science of Information Technology