Peter G. Hamon (1945- ), 2014 Library Hall of Fame Inductee

Peter G. Hamon was inducted into the Wisconsin Library Hall of Fame on November 6, 2014, at the Wisconsin Library Association Conference in Wisconsin Dells. Hamon was a leader in promoting statewide library legislation, funding and library cooperation. He was Director of the South Central Library System (SCLS) from 1981 to 2005. Under his leadership, SCLS developed a systemwide library automation system, established a statewide library delivery service and expanded from four counties to seven. He was an active member of the Wisconsin Library Association and served as President in 1991 and as Legislative Advocate for several years. He was active on the Council for Wisconsin Libraries (now WiLS) and served as treasurer, secretary and president of that organization. He was active in the American Library Association, and served as chair of the Public Library Systems Section of the Public Library Association. Hamon served on several state level legislative task forces, including the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Task Force on Library Service to Jails in 1972, the Legislative Council Study on Library Services in 1997, and the DPI State Superintendent’s Legislative Task Force in 2001. Hamon was honored as Co-WLA/DEMCO Librarian of the Year in 2004. He and his wife, Ann, received the SCLS Foundation Cornership Award in 2009. 
 
Hamon was born in Macomb, Illinois, in 1945, but grew up in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. He started working in the Scottsbluff Public Library as a page in 1960, when he was 15. He later drove and staffed the Scottsbluff Public Library bookmobile. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1967.  While attending Lawrence University, he worked in the University library in technical services and also at the Appleton Public Library. He received a Master of Arts in Anthropology in 1970 and a Master of Arts in Library Science in 1971, both at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma. While attending graduate school, he worked in the Interloan Department of the Library. He served as Head of Extension Services for the Oshkosh Public Library System from 1971 to 1975. He joined the Wisconsin State Division for Library Services as a Public Library Consultant in January 1976, and became Director of the State Reference and Loan Library in the Division in November 1976. He served in that capacity until 1981 when he became director of the South Central Library System.  
 
Hamon has contributed widely to the professional literature of librarianship, including: Public Library Service to Jails: Guidelines for Action by Ann and Peter Hamon. Madison Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin—Extension, 1975, and Budgeting and the Political Process in Libraries: Simulation Games by Peter Hamon, Darlene Weingand and Al Zimmerman, Englewood, Colorado: Libraries Unlimited, 1992.