Notability Questions
When I first started writing about my father, John Paul Eberhard, it was to - unfortunately - put together his obituary.
I had actually written an obituary for our mother first, as she died first. She was in hospice for 10 days, which gave me a chance to think about what to write and to do a little research about her. That obituary was published on the Ever Loved website when she died on April 12, 2020. I knew when I wrote Mom's obituary that the only people who would really be interested were family and friends.
However, when I started writing Dad's obituary - shortly after Mom's - I had the idea that, because Dad was well known in his industry, the obituary might get shared more broadly. And therefore, it should probably be reasonably accurate. It also proved fortuitous as Dad ended up dying only two weeks after Mom. I think I've written about that before.
Dad's obituary then became the basis for an article to try to get him into Wikipedia. Now, like most of you, I've always thought Wikipedia was open to any editor, meaning anyone could update any entry. I guess I assumed there would be some kind of control over changes, but Wikipedia also seemed to be "open".
So imagine my surprise when my first draft of an article on Dad was summarily - and probably rightly - rejected. First, the Wikipedia editors - who are a real thing - didn't like that I was Dad's daughter. They prefer that entries come from folks interested in a topic, but not so close as a child. Second, they didn't like my "flowery" language. I talked about Dad being innovative; they didn't like that. I talked about Dad being a visionary; they didn't like that. Third, and most importantly, they didn't see anything about Dad's career that was "notable".
The question of notability is an interesting one, therefore. I did finally get Dad into Wikipedia on the strength of his having be awarded the LaTrobe Prize by the AIA, a biennial $100,000 prize, which was co-awarded to the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA) to help fund/start the organization.
But the more I dig into Dad's history and career, the more I would argue makes him notable.
One thing he did early in his career was argue for and find funding for the creation of the National Conference of State Building Codes and Standards (NCSBCS).
Before that, he helped drive the development of the first computerized hotel reservation system, in a joint project between Sheraton Corporation and Hilton Hotels.
He testified before Congressional committees at least twice that I've found so far, once on the funding of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and once about plans to create the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS).
Dad was the first-ever dean of architecture at the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNYAB), where he started a new concept in graduate school programs to give the students practicum experience as well as classroom instruction at the Buffalo Organization for Social and Technological Innovation (BOSTI), patterned after Organization for Social and Technological Innovation (OSTI) in Cambridge, MA.
He essentially created the American Institute of Architects Research Corporation (AIARC), which had been a sort of "holding company" within the AIA, but hadn't actually done any research. When he left, AIARC had grown to 60 people with a budget of $10 million.
And then there's ANFA and the LaTrobe prize, and a couple of books and, and, and...
But there are other instances of things that, I would argue, make Dad notable.
Perhaps the most interesting one is that there are 21 boxes of his papers, writing, correspondence, drawings, and everything else career-related at the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming. "Officially established in 1945, the Center now holds over 90,000 cubic feet of historic documents and artifacts in more than 3500 collections—placing the AHC among the largest non-governmental archives in the nation." AHC had contacted Dad in 1981 wanting to see if he would be willing to have them be the archive of his papers as part of their Contemporary History collection. Dad was both "flattered and dismayed" by the request, because he didn't think he was at the point of his career where archivists would be interested in him. However, he sent off papers in 1982 and then more and more throughout his career. The original inventory I have from 1984 said the archive contained 13 boxes. Now, in 2023, it's 21 boxes.
So, Wikipedia, I would think that Dad being one of only 3,500 collections at a place called the "American Heritage Center" would also qualify him as being notable. And, in fact, there's a hyperlink to his collection at AHC on the Wikipedia article for Dad.
So there.
I had actually written an obituary for our mother first, as she died first. She was in hospice for 10 days, which gave me a chance to think about what to write and to do a little research about her. That obituary was published on the Ever Loved website when she died on April 12, 2020. I knew when I wrote Mom's obituary that the only people who would really be interested were family and friends.
However, when I started writing Dad's obituary - shortly after Mom's - I had the idea that, because Dad was well known in his industry, the obituary might get shared more broadly. And therefore, it should probably be reasonably accurate. It also proved fortuitous as Dad ended up dying only two weeks after Mom. I think I've written about that before.
Dad's obituary then became the basis for an article to try to get him into Wikipedia. Now, like most of you, I've always thought Wikipedia was open to any editor, meaning anyone could update any entry. I guess I assumed there would be some kind of control over changes, but Wikipedia also seemed to be "open".
So imagine my surprise when my first draft of an article on Dad was summarily - and probably rightly - rejected. First, the Wikipedia editors - who are a real thing - didn't like that I was Dad's daughter. They prefer that entries come from folks interested in a topic, but not so close as a child. Second, they didn't like my "flowery" language. I talked about Dad being innovative; they didn't like that. I talked about Dad being a visionary; they didn't like that. Third, and most importantly, they didn't see anything about Dad's career that was "notable".
The question of notability is an interesting one, therefore. I did finally get Dad into Wikipedia on the strength of his having be awarded the LaTrobe Prize by the AIA, a biennial $100,000 prize, which was co-awarded to the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA) to help fund/start the organization.
But the more I dig into Dad's history and career, the more I would argue makes him notable.
One thing he did early in his career was argue for and find funding for the creation of the National Conference of State Building Codes and Standards (NCSBCS).
Before that, he helped drive the development of the first computerized hotel reservation system, in a joint project between Sheraton Corporation and Hilton Hotels.
He testified before Congressional committees at least twice that I've found so far, once on the funding of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and once about plans to create the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS).
Dad was the first-ever dean of architecture at the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNYAB), where he started a new concept in graduate school programs to give the students practicum experience as well as classroom instruction at the Buffalo Organization for Social and Technological Innovation (BOSTI), patterned after Organization for Social and Technological Innovation (OSTI) in Cambridge, MA.
He essentially created the American Institute of Architects Research Corporation (AIARC), which had been a sort of "holding company" within the AIA, but hadn't actually done any research. When he left, AIARC had grown to 60 people with a budget of $10 million.
And then there's ANFA and the LaTrobe prize, and a couple of books and, and, and...
But there are other instances of things that, I would argue, make Dad notable.
Perhaps the most interesting one is that there are 21 boxes of his papers, writing, correspondence, drawings, and everything else career-related at the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming. "Officially established in 1945, the Center now holds over 90,000 cubic feet of historic documents and artifacts in more than 3500 collections—placing the AHC among the largest non-governmental archives in the nation." AHC had contacted Dad in 1981 wanting to see if he would be willing to have them be the archive of his papers as part of their Contemporary History collection. Dad was both "flattered and dismayed" by the request, because he didn't think he was at the point of his career where archivists would be interested in him. However, he sent off papers in 1982 and then more and more throughout his career. The original inventory I have from 1984 said the archive contained 13 boxes. Now, in 2023, it's 21 boxes.
So, Wikipedia, I would think that Dad being one of only 3,500 collections at a place called the "American Heritage Center" would also qualify him as being notable. And, in fact, there's a hyperlink to his collection at AHC on the Wikipedia article for Dad.
So there.
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