Wilson began to work as a publisher and bookseller while he was a student at the University of Minnesota (Lawler 12). In 1889, Wilson and his roommate, Henry S. Morris, decided to take advantage of the fact that there was no bookstore in the vicinity of the university. The two enterprising young men raised money and took orders from staff and students. They launched their business out of their boarding house room with an old printing press that Wilson had already acquired. The store soon expanded into an office at the university, where Wilson also ran the post office and sold bicycles. He continued to run the business independently after Morris graduated (Lawler 17-19).

In 1895, Wilson married a graduate student named Justina Leavitt ("Wilson, H.W." 864). They moved to Minneapolis where he opened another successful bookstore. Wilson chose to publish works that he discovered his customers needed, and that he thought they would enjoy. Sometimes he found it very difficult to find these books. There were no standardized lists, and he had to look through the catalogues of publishing houses. He depended on a periodical called Publisher's Weekly. It consisted of weekly issues listing new publications, and a yearly cumulative list. When Publisher's Weekly stopped publishing the combined lists due to insurmountable costs, Wilson decided to compile a monthly cumulative list on his own (Lawler 19).

Though Wilson kept his bookstore open until 1913 (Lawler 61), this decision irrevocably changed his career path and had an enormous impact on the world of librarianship. In 1897, Wilson began planning for the publication of the Cumulative Book Index. Again, the enterprise was launched from his home. Justina Wilson undertook the enormous task of editing. The first number was published in February of 1898 (Lawler 25-28).

The first issues were essentially two indexes in the same catalogue. In the first section, publications were listed alphabetically by author and by title. The second section was a subject index that was not alphabetical. This system proved too confusing, and after five issues the CBI became a dictionary catalogue. Author, title and subject were still used, but all the entries appeared in one alphabetical list (Lawler 26-27). By 1929, the Cumulative Book Index was considered "a world list of books in English" (Lawler 34). It was Wilson's first of many bibliographies that range from organizing lists of legal periodicals to works of children's literature (Lawler 163-167).

As issues continued to appear, librarians discovered that the CBI was very helpful. Wilson realized that librarians were his chief subscribers, so he began to attend library conferences. He learned about some of the difficulties librarians faced in their jobs. They told him how frustrating it was to try to locate a specific article in a stack of current periodicals. The three periodical indexes published at the time were considered inadequate. Accordingly, Wilson began planning the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature in 1901 (Lawler 36-38).

By this time, the H.W. Wilson Company had a growing staff, a new office on the top floor of a building near the university (Lawler 35), and a full time editor, Miss Marion E. Potter (Lawler 29). The bookstore and publishing office were on the main floor of the building, and all of the profits went into the bibliographies. Eventually, the bibliographies took over the company. After further expansion, Wilson sold his bookstore in 1913 and relocated the company to White Plains, New York. Though he was proud to have built his enterprise in the west, long waits for mail delivery had became an insurmountable obstacle (Lawler 61-62). The company underwent a final move to a building in the Bronx in 1917 (Lawler 65). Though it has expanded dramatically, the company remains at the same location today ("H.W. Wilson Company" 1890).

Wilson's company was a leader in labour relations, as well as bibliographies and indexes. From the outset, Wilson hired women to work on his editorial staff. He was very concerned with worker satisfaction, and maintained contact with all of his employees even when the company grew (Lawler 48-49):

Though salaries were skimpy, Wilson provided such fringe benefits as stock sharing, pensions for older employees, cumulative sick leave, and hospitalization at a time when few American business firms did so. He encouraged vacations, though rarely taking them himself; employed women and placed them in positions of responsibility; and pioneered in the hiring of the physically handicapped. ("Wilson, H.W." 865)

His staff worked tirelessly to serve the company's subscribers. Wilson and his employees devised innovative ways to cut costs in the production of their indexes in order to benefit clients. When working on the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, Wilson devised the service basis plan of pricing. The amount subscribers paid for the Reader's Guide went up according to the number of indexed periodicals they actually had in their libraries (Lawler 41). This system allowed Wilson to cater to many sizes and types of libraries.

Wilson united librarians in his goal to serve them. Lawler writes that the Union List of Serials (first published in 1927) was "doubtless the greatest cooperative enterprise ever undertaken by American libraries" (72). Wilson was able to compile the first Union List after local librarians began to keep records of their periodical holdings. Wilson's staff received, organized, and combined the lists from thirty-six large American libraries. The entire undertaking was non-profit. Money paid by the libraries covered only the costs of labour, printing, and distribution (Lawler 74-75).

One of the bibliographies published by the H.W. Wilson Company in 1936 was the first issue of a specialized cumulative periodical index for librarians and library students (Lawler 66). Today, Library Literature is not only available in the print version, but also online and in CD-ROM and magnetic tape formats. The 1998 issue of the Information Industry Directory describes thirty-seven W.H. Wilson indexes and bibliographies that exist in these electronic formats (1891-1897).

The H.W. Wilson Company also has a comprehensive web page. Among other services, it updates browsers on new publications, allows them to sign up for free trials of more than twenty electronic databases, provides a current news bulletin for librarians, and lists job opportunities with the company (H.W. Wilson: Information for tomorrow, today).

Halsey William Wilson continued to work well into his eighties (Lawler 5). He passed away in 1954 ("Wilson, H.W." 865), but will always be remembered for his invaluable innovations and contributions to the world of library research and information retrieval.

It is now almost one hundred years since the first issue of the Cumulative Book Index and the beginning of H.W. Wilson's Company. I would love to know what Wilson would think of the technology of the information age, and of the products his company is now capable of producing. Undoubtedly he would be thrilled to discover the services that the H.W. Wilson Company provides to librarians and users all over the world.

"H.W. Wilson Company." Information Industry Directory 1998 vol. 2. 18th ed. 1997.

H.W. Wilson: Information for tomorrow, today. 8 Sept. 1997. (6 Oct. 1997).

Lawler, John. The H.W. Wilson Company: Half a Century of Bibliographic Publishing. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1950.

"Wilson, H.W." World Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. 3rd ed. 1993.