It is with great sadness that we inform you that Dr. Ronald Hagler, Professor Emeritus of the School of Information, passed away in Vancouver on May 20, 2022. Dr. Hagler arrived in Vancouver in 1961 with a PhD from the University of Michigan to work in UBC’s School of Librarianship, as we were then called. His research area was Canadian publishing, and he taught courses on cataloguing and classification, “technical services,” and the history of books and printing. The 1961 College and Research Libraries introduced Dr. Hagler to colleagues in the field as a “young man who has compressed a maximum of study and library experience into a minimum of years”; the journal regarded him as one of “British Columbia’s Four Horsemen” that were shaping the early years of our school (together with Robert Hamilton, Samuel Rothstein, and Rose Vainstein).
Dr. Hagler was actively involved in provincial library development. He co-led a survey of BC Public Library Services. Published in 1966, the report proposed a plan of development for public library service areas, including in school districts and municipalities, and was written in response to the population movement from rural to urban areas. In 1967-1968, Dr. Hagler undertook a study of the 1.5 million volumes available to readers in Metro Vancouver, and it revealed the existence of some 50% duplication among books added to the branches during those years. It led to the recommendation of coordinated book selection at a time when each library tried to build a complete collection on its own.
According to the autobiography of Sheila Egoff, Once Upon a Time: My Life with Children’s Books, Dr. Hagler “was a night owl and could be contacted on any matter at two in the morning,” while his keen eye proved useful for deciphering the illegible text on early woodcuts. Dr. Hagler was a gifted public speaker, and former students remember him as a dedicated teacher.
Sources:
- College and Research Libraries, 22:1 (Nov 1961), p. 473
- Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, 4 (1970), p. 97
- Sheila Egoff, Once Upon a Time: My Life with Children’s Books (Victoria: Orca Book Publishers, 2005), p. 56
- A Partnership for Development: Public Libraries in Greater Vancouver (Toronto: Albert Bowron Information, Media & Library Planners, 1971), pp. 39, 41.
- “Ronald Albert Hagler, Professor Emeritus, University of British Columbia,” UBC Wiki.
