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The personable Robert Bingham Downs dedicated his life to books, writing, library education, and academic research libraries. He began his education in a one-room schoolhouse located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. He continued his education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in Library Science at Columbia University. After graduation from Columbia in 1929, Downs and his new wife, Elizabeth Crooks, moved to Waterville, Maine, where Downs became librarian at Colby College, a small liberal arts college. Two years later he accepted a position in his home state at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, working with well-known university librarian Louis Round Wilson. Shortly after hiring Downs, Wilson left to become Dean of the new University of Chicago Library School, and Downs was promoted, at the young age of 29, to fill the vacancy left by Wilson. In 1938, he accepted a position as the Director of Libraries for the New York University System. His next career advancement was a dual role as Director of the Library and the Library School at the University of Illinois (1943-1958), Urbana. From 1958 until his retirement in 1971, Robert Downs was Dean of Library Administration at the University of Illinois.
Downs possessed a love and fascination for research collections to the point that some have maintained that the "R" in his initials might stand for "Resources." He studied books, valued resources, and built exemplary collections. Over the course of his early career, Downs was forced to grapple with financial constraints imposed by the Great Depression and the unstable atmosphere of World War II. However, at the University of Illinois, Downs was able to devote twenty-eight years implementing the vision of his predecessor, Phineas L. Windsor, University of Illinois Library Director and Library School Director from 1908 to 1940. There, he established an academic research library composed of some of the best research collections available and built what is regarded today as one of the finest academic research library collections in the nation. He excelled at cultivating the necessary ingredients for building and maintaining excellence in research facilities--the enthusiastic support of his staff, university faculty and administrators, and alumni.
Downs richly contributed to the profession not only through his collection development efforts and career educating others, but also by serving in high level professional association offices. He was President of the Association of College & Research Libraries (1940-41), President of the American Library Association (1952-53), and President of the Illinois Library Association (1955-56). Downs responsibly led the American Library Association during the era of the "virulent epidemic labeled McCarthyism" (Downs 1984, 157). He describes this threatening time period this way: "McCarthy's attacks on U.S. information libraries led to the reported burning of some books, accused of being Communist propaganda, the resignations of numerous librarians serving abroad, and the closing of a considerable number of libraries because of reduced Congressional support. At this point, librarians went on the attack. On May 2-3, 1953, the Westchester Conference of the American Library Association and the American Book Publishers Council adopted a strong and eloquent statement entitled The Freedom to Read. Subsequently, the statement was endorsed by the ALA Council at the Los Angeles Conference and by a number of other national organizations." (Downs 1984, 157). The tall and erect Downs is credited with influencing the U. S. President, Dwight David Eisenhower, to take a strong public stand for freedom of inquiry and freedom of the spoken and written word. Recognition for Downs' leadership in the area of intellectual freedom came in many forms; one of the best known is the Robert B. Downs Award established by the faculty at the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library Science as an annual award to commemorate outstanding contributions to intellectual freedom in libraries.
Downs' deep professional interests in library administration, folklore, and books in general resulted in his writing a number of landmark publications, several of which have set scholarship and bibliographical standards for the profession. Among the most widely recognized are: American Library Resources (1951, 1962, 1972, 1981), The First Freedom (1960), and a compilation of folklore, The Bear Went Over the Mountain (1964, 1971). One of the most reprinted items, Books That Changed the World (1956, 1963, 1968, 1976), has sold one-half million copies and resulted in a series of titles on this theme. Immediately after retirement in 1971, Downs received a prestigious Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship that allowed him to live and study in England and resulted in the compilation of Famous British Resources (1973). During his retirement years, he accepted several visiting faculty appointments at universities in the United States and Canada, continued consulting and writing, and traveled widely. Downs continued to travel and write until his death at home in Urbana, Illinois, in 1991 at the age of 87.
He was passionate about the history of books and libraries and some of his best known works explore facets of this topic. Downs strongly believed in the power of books to change history. In one speech entitled "Some Current Delusions or Horsefeathers in Librarianship," he says: "The question boils down to this: Are books particularly important? Do they really matter? My answer is: Books have been, and are, the most potent force in our entire culture and civilization." He gives examples: "Consider how the writings of Martin Luther helped to produce the Protestant Revolution; how much Tom Paine's book Common Sense, circulating widely through the American colonies, did in creating the American Revolution; the part played by Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin in bringing on the American Civil War; the inspiration and philosophy furnished by Karl Marx's Das Kapital for the Russian Communist Revolution and other revolutionary movements; and the role of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf as the bible of Nazi Germany." (Downs, 1984, 147-48).
Downs left a legacy of over 350 written works and articles that describe techniques for the administration and supervision of libraries. He was known for lively delivery of speeches and entertaining articles on topics concerning library administration, research resources, intellectual freedom, collection development, university librarianship, folklore, rare books, and the influence of books on history. In 1984, he produced Perspectives on the Past: An Autobiography which reproduces a number of his speeches and writings.
He vigorously maintained that the library is the heart of the university, was a leader in establishing the practice of upgrading library professionals to full academic faculty status in addition to acquiring 120 significant research collections for the University of Illinois Library during his twenty-eight years there. He was effective in dealing with both faculty and university administrators, producing both dollars for continued expansion of the university research library and policies which benefit librarians.
Over his lifetime, Downs received six honorary doctorates and a number of important citations and awards that honor and distinguish him in the profession. These include the Clarence Day Award (1963) for promoting a love of books and reading; the Joseph W. Lippincott Award (1964) for distinguished service in the profession of librarianship; the Melvil Dewey Medal (1974) for creative achievement of high order; the Centennial Medal of Syracuse University (1970) for outstanding achievement; and recognition in 1979, side by side with Keyes Metcalf, as Academic/Research Librarian of the Year by the Association of College and Research Libraries. When he received the American Library Association's Clarence Day Award in 1963, the association made this statement which may well be as true today as it was then: "No librarian has reached such a wide audience and no librarian has made a richer contribution to an understanding of books for their enjoyment and for their significance for our time." (Downs 1985).
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This page is created and maintained
by Sue Soy ssoy@ischool.utexas.edu
Last Updated 3/06/99