William A. Katz

Military service Katz served in the U.S. Army from 1942-1945 during World War II and received a Bronze Star.

Career After graduating with his B.A., Katz worked as a reporter for several newspapers on the West Coast, including the Vancouver Columbian, the Oakland Post Enquirer, and the San Francisco News from 1948 to 1950. He was an editor for the Daly City Record from 1950 to 1954 and a reporter for the Seattle Times from 1954 to 1957.

Author and editor Katz was editor of the journal Reference Quarterly for 10 years, during which time he oversaw its transition from a short newsletter to a leading scholarly journal. He served as the editor for the Journal of Education for Librarianship from 1964 to 1972. He was editor of The Reference Librarian in 1981 and The Acquisitions Librarian in 1987.

Katz wrote more than 50 books and articles during his career. The 8th edition was published in 2002. It has been translated into Chinese and Japanese. He also created and edited the reference text Magazines for Libraries, first published in 1969, which is in its 29th print edition as of 2021.

Katz also served as editor and compiler of over 40 works on various topics in library science, poetry, and the history of books. Katz also published on bibliographic history, including Cuneiform to Computer: A History of Reference Sources (1998) and A History of Book Illustrations: 29 Points of View (1994).

By the time of his death, Katz was an internationally known authority on reference service. Isadore Gilbert Mudge Citation for Reference Librarianship, ALA, 1973 Distinguished Alumni Award, University of Washington, 1977 Louis Shores-Oryx Press Award, 1993