Doris Hargrett Clack facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Doris Hargrett Clack
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| Born | March 24, 1928  Wakulla County |
| Died | November 22, 1995 (aged 67) |
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| Occupation | Librarian |
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Doris Hargrett Clack (born March 24, 1928, died November 22, 1995) was an amazing African-American librarian. She was a super expert in how libraries organize books and information. For 23 years, she taught at Florida State University. She did important research on how to classify books about Black history and culture. She also worked on the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR2), which are like the instruction manual for librarians.
Contents
Her Family and Early Life
Doris Alease Hargrett was born on March 24, 1928. Her birthplace was Hyde Park in Wakulla County, Florida. This was a rural area in the Florida Panhandle. She was the eighth of nine children in her family. Her parents were Andrew Joshua Hargrett and Delia Leana Green.
Her Grandfather's Legacy
Doris's grandfather, Amos Hargrett (1833-1905), was born into slavery. But he became a very important person. He held many political jobs. He was also one of the few African-American delegates. He helped write the Florida Constitution of 1885.
Amos Hargrett had eleven children. Four of them became teachers. One of them was Andrew Hargrett, Doris's father. He went to a special college that later became Florida A&M University. Andrew Hargrett was called a "Frontier Professor" by his son. He traveled around teaching and was also a school principal. He earned extra money by farming, fishing, and carpentry.
Andrew Hargrett worked hard to improve education for African-Americans in Wakulla County. He helped start the first elementary school for them. He also helped create Shadeville High School. This was the first high school for African-Americans in the county.
Her Mother's Story
Doris's mother's father was Dennis Green. He was a farmer in Liberty County, Florida. There was no high school for African-Americans in that county. So, the family decided that one of Dennis Green's four children would go to school in Apalachicola, Florida.
Delia Green, Doris's mother, was chosen. In Apalachicola, she met Andrew Hargrett. Delia Green also became a schoolteacher, just like Doris's father.
Her Education Journey
Doris Hargrett Clack started school in Wakulla County. These schools were founded by her father. She graduated from Lincoln High School in Tallahassee, Florida.
She earned her first degree, an A.B., from Florida A&M University in 1949. Later, she got a master's degree in library science. This was from the University of Michigan in 1956. She then earned her PhD in library science in 1973. This higher degree was from the University of Pittsburgh.
Her PhD paper was about library subject headings. It was called An Investigation Into the Adequacy of Library of Congress Subject Headings for Resources for Black Studies. This means she studied if the way libraries organized books about Black studies was good enough.
Her Career as a Librarian and Professor
Doris Clack taught for seven years in public high schools. She taught in Gadsden, Leon, and Wakulla counties in Florida. After getting her master's degree, she worked at the Florida A&M University library. She eventually led the departments that organized and processed books.
In 1973, she became a professor. She joined the Florida State University School of Library Science. She taught cataloging there until she passed away in 1995. Cataloging is the process of creating records for books and other materials so people can find them in a library.
One of her students described her as "elegant, tall and fashionably dressed." The student also said she was "serious about cataloging and firm, even strict, in teaching us the discipline." But she was also "very caring."
Important Books and Workshops
Clack wrote many books and articles about library cataloging. Some of her important works include:
- Black Literature Resources: Analysis and Organization (1975)
- Authority Control: Principles, Applications, and Instructions (1990)
Her book on Authority Control is considered a classic. Authority control helps librarians make sure that names and topics are always spelled and used the same way in a library catalog. This makes it easier to find information.
Doris Clack also led many workshops. These workshops taught librarians about the new rules in the second edition of the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR2). These rules were published in 1979.
In 1979, she organized a big international conference about AACR2. This was a highlight of her career. Many important people in library science attended. She also edited the papers from this conference. They were published as The Making of a Code: The Issues Underlying AACR2 (1980).
Work in West Africa
Clack also worked a lot with libraries in West Africa. From 1987 to 1988, she taught at the library school of the University of Maiduguri in Nigeria. She also studied libraries in other Nigerian cities like Ibadan and Lagos. She gave lectures all over Nigeria.
In the 1990s, she visited Ghana twice. She lectured at the University of Ghana and other places. She made such strong connections there that a friend in Morso, Ghana, named her daughter after Clack.
Her Personal Life
Doris Hargrett Clack married Harold Lee Clack in 1954. They had two sons, Harold Levi Clack and Herek Lerron Clack. She passed away from cancer on November 22, 1995.
See also
- Jim Hargrett, another descendant of Amos Hargrett, served in the Florida Legislature
