Rudolph Hjalmar Gjelsness

Rudolph Hjalmar Gjelsness
Born	18 October 1894
Died	16 August 1968  (aged 73)
Alma mater	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign University of North Dakota
Occupation	Librarian, translator
Employer	American Expeditionary Forces University of California, Berkeley University of Michigan University of Oregon University of Oslo

Rudolph Hjalmar Gjelsness (October 18, 1894 – August 16, 1968) was a prominent American librarian and literary translator who served as Dean of the University of Michigan's Library Science Department from 1940 to 1964. He was the first recipient of the Beta Phi Mu Award recognizing distinguished service to education for librarianship.

Additionally, Gjelsness held positions at a variety of public and university libraries, including the New York City Public Library, the University of Arizona, and the University of California-Berkeley, as well as several others both in the United States and abroad. He also contributed articles to numerous scholarly journals within the library field, including Public Libraries, The Library Quarterly, and the Journal of Education for Librarians.^[1] In 1999, American Libraries named him one of the "100 Most Important Leaders We Had in the 20th Century."^[2]