Allen Kent (October 24, 1921 – May 1, 2014) was an American

information scientist The term information scientist developed in the latter part of the twentieth century by Wm. Hovey Smith to describe an individual, usually with a relevant subject degree (such as one in Information and Computer Science - CIS) or high level of subjec ...

Early life

He was born in New York City.Dr. Allen Kent, Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Passed Away at 92 Years
ASIS&T obituary, 2014 At

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a Public university, public research university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York ...

, he earned a degree in

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

.Obituary: Allen Kent / A pioneer in field of information sciences: Oct. 24, 1921 - May 1, 2014
By Molly Born

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette The ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'', also known simply as the PG, is the largest newspaper serving Greater Pittsburgh, metropolitan Pittsburgh in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Descended from the ''Pittsburgh Gazette'', established in 1786 as the fi ...

May 3, 2014 During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, he served in the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

. After the war, he worked on a classified project at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

in mechanized document encoding and search.

Career

In 1955, he helped found the Center for Documentation Communication Research at

Western Reserve University Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US * Western, New York, a town in the US * Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia * Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that ...

. This was "the first academic program in the field of mechanized information retrieval, first using

cards {{Redirect, CARDS, other uses, Cards (disambiguation){{!Cards The CARDS programme, of Community Assistance for Reconstruction, Development and Stabilisation, is the EU's main instrument of financial assistance to the Western Balkans, covering spec ...

, then utilizing new

reel-to-reel Reel-to-reel audio tape recording, also called open-reel recording, is magnetic tape audio recording in which the recording tape is spooled between reels. To prepare for use, the ''supply reel'' (or ''feed reel'') containing the tape is plac ...

tape technology." In the same year, he introduced the measures of

precision and recall In pattern recognition, information retrieval, object detection and classification (machine learning), precision and recall are performance metrics that apply to data retrieved from a collection, corpus or sample space. Precision (also calle ...

in . In 1959, he wrote an article for Harper's magazine entitled, "A Machine That Does Research" which provided one of the first insights in mainstream media about how Americans' lives can change due to electronic information technology. He joined the faculty of the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...

in 1963, where in 1970 he began the Department of Information Science. He retired from the university in 1992. At the time of his death, he was Distinguished Service Professor in the School of Information Sciences at the

Obituary: Allen Kent
The University Times,

, May 15, 2014. The school named a scholarship after him.

Selective bibliography

* *
A Machine That Does Research
" (April 1959), Harper's Magazine * Information Analysis and Retrieval, 1962 *''The Structure and Governance of Library Networks'' with Thomas J. Galvin. New York: Marcel Dekker, 1979. * ''The Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science'' (1968-2003). Edited by Allen Kent, Harold Lancour and Jay E. Daily. New York: Marcel Dekker. * The Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology * The Encyclopedia of Microcomputers

Awards

* 1980 Best Information Science Book for ''The Structure and Governance of Library Networks'' from ASIS * 1977 Award of Merit from

American Society for Information Science and Technology American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, ...

* 1968 Eastman Kodak Award for significant contributions to the Science of Information Technology

References

Archival Materials

* Archival materials 1952–1988 are held by the University of Pittsburgh pe
Worldcat holdings record: Allen Kent papers. 1952–1988
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kent, Allen 1921 births 2014 deaths Information scientists City College of New York alumni University of Pittsburgh faculty Case Western Reserve University faculty United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II