Poole, William Frederick (1821–1894)

US librarian and historian. As a student at Yale, where he graduated in 1849, he maintained and expanded a project indexing useful materials in books and magazines. This index was published in 1848 and was the forerunner to Poole's Index to Periodical Literature. He was librarian of the Boston Athen|Qum (1856–69) and he then helped to establish the library of the US Naval Academy and the Cincinnati Public Library. In 1874 he became the first librarian of the Chicago Public Library and in 1887 he helped organize Chicago's Newberry Library, where he remained until his death. He is also known for his contributions to the profession of library administration. He was born in Salem, Massachusetts.