Nelson, Donald K., 1915-

Variant names

Dates:

Active 1915

Birth 1915

Biographical notes:

Donald K. Nelson (1915-), PhD, was the Director of Libraries at Brigham Young University from 1966-1980.

Donald K. Nelson was born June 27, 1915 in Idaho. He grew up on a farm in Cedarville, Idaho until around 1923 when his family moved to Weston, Idaho. They lived in Weston for six years and then moved to Preston, Idaho and lived there for four years after which they moved to Logan, Utah in 1933. In 1933 he enrolled in the largest freshman class, up to that time, at Utah State University. He was able to get a job on campus at the library, which was his first experience working at a library, and he worked at a library from then on until he retired. He graduated from Utah State in 1938 with a double major in Accounting and English and a minor in music. He then moved down to Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Utah to work in their library. During the summers he would live in Denver so he could attend the University of Denver where he got his Master of Library Science and Masters of Business Administration. He got married while attending Utah State, they were married in Logan. In 1949 he accepted a position at the new library on the Eastern Oregon College campus. While working at Eastern Oregon he took two years sabbatical in order to get his doctorate in Library Administration at the University of California-Berkeley. He graduated in 1959. He worked at Eastern Oregon College from 1949 to 1961. In 1961 he was hired by Brigham Young University as the Assistant University Librarian until 1966 when he became the Director of Libraries at BYU, a position he held until he retired in 1980.

From the guide to the Donald K. Nelson oral history, 2007, (L. Tom Perry Special Collections)