Kaiser, John Boynton, 1887-1973

John Boynton Kaiser was born in Cleveland on January 1, 1887. He was a graduate of the New York State Library School in Albany, obtaining a BLS in 1910 and an MLS in 1917. He also earned a degree in international law from the University of Illinois in 1912. Kaiser worked in the public libraries of Tacoma, Washington, Iowa City, Iowa, Oakland, California, and Newark, New Jersey. Of the last two, he was director, being at Oakland from 1927-1943 and at Newark from 1943-1958. He taught classes in library administration at the University of Illinois, the University of Chicago, Rutgers, the University of California at Berkeley, as well as at Columbia. Kaiser was president of the Pacific Northwest Library Association from 1917-1918. He served as president of the California Library Association from 1932-1933 and was president of the New Jersey Library Association from 1948-1949. He served as vice-president of the American Library Association in 1949-1950. From 1960-1963, Kaiser was the executive director of the American Documentation Institute (also known as the American Society for Information Science). He served as president of the New York State Library School Association from 1947-1973. He contributed to professional books and journals, writing on the subjects of library administration, finance, and personnel. He also compiled bibliographies in the field of philately. He edited the April 1958 issue of Library Trends on the "Legal Aspects of Library Administration." Upon his retirement in 1950, the Newark Public Library prepared an Annotated Bibliography of the writings of John Boynton Kaiser, published 1911 to 1958, which shows not only his professional interests but also his activity as a philatelist.

He died on September 30, 1973.