Dorothy Campbell Tompkins, an extraordinarily able and prolific bibliographer who received the UC Berkeley Citation for 47 years of distinguished service to the University, died on May 18, 1998 in Berkeley after a brief illness. She was 89.
Born on July 9, 1908 in St. Paul, Minnesota, Dorothy Tompkins came to the University of California at Berkeley to study as an undergraduate and received her A.B. in 1929. However, two years earlier, in August 1927, she had begun working at the Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS), then called the Bureau of Public Administration, as an intern in the Library. Upon receiving her undergraduate degree, she became a reference librarian with the Bureau and began her work as a bibliographer while pursuing a graduate degree at Cal in Humanities awarded in 1937. Petite, gracious, and unfailingly courteous and helpful, Tompkins quickly established a reputation for competence and concern for those she served.
As her work as a bibliographer progressed, that reputation grew. Over 47 years at IGS, she worked with scholars and students across a broad range of disciplines as well as attorneys, legislators, and other public officials. In 1972, the American Association of Law Libraries gave her its Andrews Award in recognition of the immeasurable impact and wide ranging influence of her work on "almost every major problem or activity in which modern government and the legal profession is interested."
Her bibliographies, comprising of 90 publications, often broke new ground. She was among the first to conceptualize legal study in an interdisciplinary fashion that provided easier access to materials for students and scholars of law and government. All of her work was marked by a high standard of accuracy and imaginative organization as well as ground-breaking conceptualization.
In addition to her work as a bibliographer, Mrs. Tompkins edited the California Public Survey and served as a contributing editor to the academic journal Criminologica. She was a member of the American Society of Criminology, the American Society of Indexers, and the Western Governmental Research Association.
Mrs. Tompkins' deceased husband John Barr Tompkins was the former Head of Public Services at the University of California, Berkeley’s Bancroft Library.
In memory of Mrs. Tompkins’ distinguished career and sustained interest in the Institute’s Library, the Dorothy Campbell Tompkins Library Endowment Fund has been established in her honor. Contributions to this memorial fund may be sent to IGS, care of Marc A. Levin, Assistant Director, Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, 109 Moses Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-2370.