William B. Brahms

William B. Brahms (Bill) is best known for his research work on famous or "notable last facts" and famous or "notable last words," specifically the reference works Notable Last Facts (2005) and Last Words of Notable People (2010). He was born in Camden, New Jersey in 1966. Bill attended public schools in Haddon Township, New Jersey before entering Rutgers College in 1985. where he garnered departmental and general honors as well as being a Henry Rutgers Scholar (his thesis was a proposal for harmonizing intellectual property laws worldwide). For his leadership service to the Rutgers community, he was selected as High Skull of the Cap and Skull Society. Brahms was also awarded membership in Phi Beta Kappa, and was a member of the Delta Phi (St. Elmo) fraternity. He graduated with college honors in 1989 with a B.A. in Economics and a minor in Music. Originally intent on a career in law, he entered Rutgers Law School in 1990. However, he soon discovered his true calling was librarianship and research. He entered the graduate program at Rutgers University Graduate School of Communication, Information and Library Studies (SCILS) where he graduated with an M.L.S. and was selected for membership in Beta Phi Mu. During and after graduation he worked at the South Brunswick, New Jersey Public Library; where in 1991, he worked with Michael Arnold on what was one of the pioneering searchable digitized historical photograph databases in a community library in the United States. During the mid-late1990s, he worked with Arnold' again to put up on the web-based complete historic run of local newspapers which was full page image and full-text searchable; and also on a free publicly accessible versatile image archive of historic town images with searchable text -- perhaps among the earliest efforts of this type of work on the web in a mid-size community public library in the U.S. From 1993 until 2004 Brahms worked at the Franklin Township Public Library in Somerset, New Jersey where he served as the Head of Reference. At Franklin, Brahms wrote his first three books including Images of America; Franklin Township (Arcadia, 1997; a photographic history of the township prior to the 1960s) and the large-scale work, Franklin Township, Somerset County, NJ: A History (FTPL, 1998; the first comprehensive work about this important New Jersey community). His work of Franklin Township history garnered him two commendations from the township and scholar/author award from the Marconi Foundation in Somerset. In 2000, he compiled The Cap and Skull Society of Rutgers College Centennial History and Biographical Directory (C&S Rutgers, 2000; the first written history of this Rutgers group). In 2004, Brahms founded Reference Desk Press, Inc. a Haddonfield, NJ based publishing company. Reference Desk Press is now the imprint of Reference Desk Publishing, LLC. Today Bill is a Chief Librarian (Branch Manager) of the administrative headquarters and largest branch ( M. Allan Vogelson Regional Branch / Voorhees Branch) of the Camden County Library System in Southern New Jersey. At Camden County he co-developed a retail-style storefront mall branch called Shelf Life and an innovative hi-tech self-contained teen library center called The Corner. In 2006, as part of an initiative to spur early library card registration he issued a library card via cellphone to a child immediately after birth, undoubtedly the youngest library card holder in the world. Brahms has served on the advisory board of the New Jersey Digital Highway and is a member of several boards related to history, preservation and the arts, as well as being a member of numerous library and publishing associations and organizations. He is listed in various biographical databases including: Marquis Who's Who in the World and Who's Who in America.