Lawrence Clark Powell

Who was Lawrence Clark Powell?

Lawrence Clark Powell was a librarian, literary critic, bibliographer and author of more than 100 books.

He was University Librarian at the UCLA Library and head librarian of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library from 1944 until 1961. He was the first dean of the School of Library Service at UCLA, which later merged to become the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. He received a BA from Occidental College in 1928, a doctorate from University of Burgundy in Dijon in 1932, and Certificate of Librarianship from UC Berkeley in 1937.

After retiring from UCLA in 1966, Powell moved to Tucson, Arizona in 1971, where – as Professor in Residence for nearly two decades - he was instrumental in the growth of the University of Arizona Graduate School of Library Science, now known as the University of Arizona School of Information Resources and Library Science. The University of Arizona Libraries Special Collections holds a collection of Powell’s papers documenting his time in Tucson, and the Fay and Lawrence Clark Powell Endowment for Southwest Research continues to support Powell’s interest in the geography of the southwest United States.