Herbert Ohlman Papers, 1955-2002. Finding Aid.

Summary Information

Title: Herbert Ohlman papers
Dates: 1955-2002
Creator: Ohlman, Herbert Marvin.
Extent: 3 boxes (1.6 cubic feet)
Language: English
Collection Number: CBI 179
Abstract:

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.

Repository: University of Minnesota Libraries. Charles Babbage Institute.

Access and Use

Acquisition Information:

The collection was donated by Herbert Ohlman's son Mike Ohlman, via Bob Williams, in 2003.

Access Restrictions:

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

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.

Collection 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.

Subject Terms

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

Location		Title
		Biographical and Employment History, circa 1960-2002
Box 1		Resumes and Miscellaneous, circa 1960-2002.  Box 1, Folder 1
		SDC, Lockheed, Itek, IBM, Washington University, Riverside Research Institute, 1960-1966, 1970-1972.  Box 1, Folder 2
		Correspondence and Notes, 1955-1999
Box 1		Eugene Garfield, 1955-1966.  Box 1, Folder 3
		Mechanical Indexing Correspondence, 1960-1965.  Box 1, Folder 4
		Miscellaneous Correspondence, circa 1966-1999.  Box 1, Folder 5
		Miscellaneous Notes, circa 1985-1998.  Box 1, Folder 6
		Talks, Writings and Research, 1955-1999  Note 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.
Box 1		"Technical Information-Part I: Technical Literature and Punched Cards," February 1955.  Box 1, Folder 7
		Permutation Indexing, 1957.  Box 1, Folder 8
		"Permutation Index No.1: A Subject Guide to Sage Programming Documents," 1953-Mid 1957.  Box 1, Folder 9
		"Permutation Index: Experimental Issue No. 2," Mid 1957-Mid 1958.  Box 1, Folder 10
		"A Permutation Index to the 'Preprints of the International Conference on Scientific Information' " by Joan Citron, Lewis Hart and Herbert Ohlman, 1958.  Box 1, Folder 11
		"Subject-Word Letter Frequencies with Applications to Superimposed Coding, 1958.  Box 1, Folder 12 Note ICSI Paper
		"A Permutation Index to the 'Preprints of the International Conference on Scientific Information,' " 1959.  Box 1, Folder 13
		"Mechanical Indexing: Historical Development, Techniques and Critique," 1960. Box 1, Folder 14
		"Communication Media and Educational Technology: An Overview and Assessment with Reference to Communication Satellites," May 1971.  Box 1, Folder 15
		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.  Box 1, Folder 16
		"Communications and Primary Health Care in Jamaica," 1983.  Box 1, Folder 17
		Presentation: Conference on the History and Heritage of Science Information Systems, 23-25 October 1998.  Box 1, Folder 18
		Online Research - KWIC and Permutation, 1998.  Box 1, Folder 19
		"Mechanical Indexing: A Personal Remembrance," 1999.  Box 1, Folder 20
		General Publications, 1957-1971.  Box 1, Folder 21
		General Publications and Reports, 1979-1986.  Box 1, Folder 22
		General Publications and Reports, 1971-1990.  Box 1, Folder 23 Note Removed from spiral bound notebook.
		Miscellaneous, undated.  Box 1, Folder 24
		Professional Associations, 1958, 1966-1998
Box 1		International Conference on Scientific Information (ICSI), 1958.  Box 1, Folder 25
		ACM/SIGIR, 1966-1967.  Box 1, Folder 26
		SIG/ES, 1966-1967.  Box 1, Folder 27
		American Society for Information Science (ASIS), 1969-1998.  Box 1, Folder 28
		Technical Papers, Indexes and Pamphlets, 1955-1998  Note Contains papers and other publications not written by Herbert Ohlman.
Box 1		"British Grasses: A Punched-Card Key to Grasses in the Vegetative State," by R.J. Pankhurst and J.M. Allinson, 1985.  Box 1, Folder 29
		Itek, 1963.  Box 2, Folder 1
		IBM, SDC, Rockwell International, 1958-1976.  Box 2, Folder 2
		H.P. Luhn, 1955-1959.  Box 2, Folder 3
		"NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION MEDIA: A Bibliography of Extracts Compiled by the World Health Organization," September 1977.  Box 2, Folder 4
		Reprints and Pamphlets, 1960-1998.  Box 2, Folder 5-6
Box 3		Draft Chapters (2 and 3) of early (pre-1977) history of online searching, by Charles P. Bourne and Trudi Bellardo Hahn, 1997.  Box 3, Folder 1
		Audiovisual
Box 3		Photographs.  Box 3, Folder 2
		Slides of various presentations.  Box 3