University of
Minnesota Libraries. Charles Babbage Institute. [cbi]
Ohlman, Herbert Marvin.
Herbert Ohlman
papers
1955-2002
3 boxes (1.6
cubic feet)
Collection contains the
professional papers of Herbert Ohlman. Materials include publications, talks,
correspondence, technical papers and audiovisual materials documenting his
career in the computer and communications fields, as well as his development of
permuterm indexing.
CBI 179
English
Administrative Information
Acquisition:
The collection was donated by Herbert Ohlman's son Mike Ohlman, via
Bob Williams, in 2003.
Access to materials:
Access to the collection is unrestricted.
Copyright:
The Charles Babbage Institute holds the copyright to all materials in
the collection, except for items covered by a prior copyright (such as
published materials). Researchers may quote from the collection under the fair
use provisions of the copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code).
Preferred Citation:
Herbert Ohlman Papers (CBI 179), Charles Babbage Institute, University
of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
Arrangement of Collection
The collection is arranged into the following series:
- Biographical and Employment History, circa 1960-2002
- Correspondence and Notes, 1955-1999
- Talks, Writings and Research, 1955-1999
- Professional Associations, 1958, 1966-1998
- Technical Papers, Indexes and Pamphlets, 1955-1998
- Audiovisual
Biographical Note
Herbert Marvin Ohlman was born on 6 March 1927 in New York City. He
graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1944. After spending two
years in the U.S. Army, he enrolled at Syracuse University, earning a B.S. in
physics in 1950. After a year of graduate work at the University of Minnesota
in physics, Ohlman held various positions at the National Bureau of Standards,
Engineering and Research Corporation, American Institute of Electrical
Engineers, Carrier Corporation and Battelle Memorial Institute.
In 1957 Ohlman began working at Rand Corporation in the System
Development Division. During his tenure at Rand, he developed a system of
mechanical indexing, giving a public presentation of his Permuterm Indexing at
the 1958 International Conference on Scientific Information (ICSI). At this
same conference, H.P. Luhn and colleagues from IBM presented on their indexing
system which focused on "titles indexed by Key Words-in-Context system," better
known as KWIC. The methods Ohlman and Luhn used to create their indexes were
slightly different but the output of the systems were almost identical.
After Ohlman left Rand in 1958, he worked at System Development
Corporation (1959-1960), Lockheed (1960-1961), IBM (1961-1962), McGraw-Hill
(1962) Itek Corporation (1963-1964), and Xerox (1964-1967) with graduate work
at UCLA in Mathematics (1959) and Rutgers in Library Science (1961).
Ohlman earned his M.S. in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science
from Washington University (St. Louis, MO) in 1971. He then moved to Geneva,
Switzerland to work as an consultant in communications and microcomputing for
the World Health Organization, returning to the United States in the mid-late
1990s. Herbert Ohlman died on 27 May 2002 in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina
following complications from open-heart surgery.
Scope and Content Note
The collection contains the professional papers of Herbert Ohlman.
Materials include publications, talks, correspondence, technical papers and
audiovisual materials documenting his career in the computer and communications
fields, as well as his development of permuterm indexing.
The bulk of the collection consists of Herbert Ohlman's writings
during his tenure with SDC and the World Health Organization. A large section
is dedicated to his writings on the permuterm index.
The collection also consists of technical papers, pamphlets and
indexes authored by others. Many of the technical papers are from companies
where Ohlman worked, such as IBM and Itek. A small collection of slides on
various presentations given by Ohlman are also included.
Index Terms
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog
of the University of Minnesota Libraries. Researchers desiring materials about
related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these
headings.
Ohlman,
Herbert Marvin.
American
Society for Information Science.
System
Development Corporation.
World Health
Organization.
Documentation.
Indexing.
Box and Folder List
The following section contains a detailed listing of the materials in
the collection.
Biographical and Employment History,
circa 1960-2002
1
1
Resumes and Miscellaneous,
circa 1960-2002.
1
2
SDC, Lockheed, Itek, IBM, Washington University,
Riverside Research Institute,
1960-1966, 1970-1972.
Correspondence and Notes,
1955-1999
1
3
Eugene Garfield,
1955-1966.
1
4
Mechanical Indexing Correspondence,
1960-1965.
1
5
Miscellaneous Correspondence,
circa 1966-1999.
1
6
Miscellaneous Notes,
circa 1985-1998.
Talks, Writings and Research,
1955-1999
This series contains writings penned by Herbert Ohlman, along with
talks given and research conducted on subjects such as permutation indexing,
mechanical indexing, online research and world health in reference to
communication.
1
7
"Technical Information-Part I: Technical Literature and
Punched Cards,"
February 1955.
1
8
Permutation Indexing,
1957.
1
9
"Permutation Index No.1: A Subject Guide to Sage
Programming Documents,"
1953-Mid 1957.
1
10
"Permutation Index: Experimental Issue No. 2,"
Mid 1957-Mid 1958.
1
11
"A Permutation Index to the Preprints of the International Conference on Scientific
Information" by Joan Citron, Lewis Hart and Herbert Ohlman,
1958.
1
12
"Subject-Word Letter Frequencies with Applications to
Superimposed Coding,
1958.
ICSI Paper
1
13
"A Permutation Index to the Preprints of the International Conference on Scientific
Information,"
1959.
1
14
"Mechanical Indexing: Historical Development, Techniques
and Critique,"
1960.
1
15
"Communication Media and Educational Technology: An
Overview and Assessment with Reference to Communication Satellites,"
May 1971.
1
16
Sudan Health Communications Project: "Feasibility Study
of Two-Way Radio Communications for Health Purposes." A Report for the WHO
Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office, Alexandria,
April 1975.
1
17
"Communications and Primary Health Care in Jamaica,"
1983.
1
18
Presentation: Conference on the History and Heritage of
Science Information Systems,
23-25 October 1998.
1
19
Online Research - KWIC and Permutation,
1998.
1
20
"Mechanical Indexing: A Personal Remembrance,"
1999.
1
21
General Publications,
1957-1971.
1
22
General Publications and Reports,
1979-1986.
1
23
General Publications and Reports,
1971-1990.
Removed from spiral bound notebook.
1
24
Miscellaneous,
undated.
Professional Associations,
1958, 1966-1998
1
25
International Conference on Scientific Information
(ICSI),
1958.
1
26
ACM/SIGIR,
1966-1967.
1
27
SIG/ES,
1966-1967.
1
28
American Society for Information Science (ASIS),
1969-1998.
Technical Papers, Indexes and Pamphlets,
1955-1998
Contains papers and other publications not written by Herbert
Ohlman.
1
29
"British Grasses: A Punched-Card Key to Grasses in the
Vegetative State," by R.J. Pankhurst and J.M. Allinson,
1985.
2
1
Itek,
1963.
2
2
IBM, SDC, Rockwell International,
1958-1976.
2
3
H.P. Luhn,
1955-1959.
2
4
"NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION MEDIA: A Bibliography of
Extracts Compiled by the World Health Organization,"
September 1977.
2
5-6
Reprints and Pamphlets,
1960-1998.
3
1
Draft Chapters (2 and 3) of early (pre-1977) history of
online searching, by Charles P. Bourne and Trudi Bellardo Hahn,
1997.
Audiovisual
3
2
Photographs.
3
Slides of various presentations.