Ralph R. Shaw  Ralph Robert Shaw (May 18, 1907 – October 14, 1972) was a librarian, a publisher, and an innovator in library science. In 1999, "American Libraries" named him one of the "100 Most Important Leaders We Had in the 20th Century". Ralph Shaw founded a publishing company called the Scarecrow Press in 1950 in the basement of his Alexandria, Virginia home, “assisted only by his wife Viola”. Shaw wanted to establish a publishing company that would publish scholarly and academic work, unlikely to capture the attention from most companies that were more concerned with making money than the distribution of scholarly ideas. He started the Scarecrow Press with “author and editor Earl Schenk Miers”. The website for the company describes how the company name came out of this idea that this new company was not concerned with making money. “Shaw knew that costs would have to be kept in control because he envisioned publishing scholarly books that were intellectually important, yet economically marginal. As Shaw described a company that would avoid excessive office costs, excessive editorial costs, general trade advertising, and the building up a staff, Miers broke in, saying, "You're talking about a scarecrow: it has no overhead, it pays no rent, it is not responsible for anybody's future clothing and shelter. It's a scarecrow!" Kenneth F. Kister, in his biography of Eric Moon describes as “dynamic…a polymath who had more irons in the fire than any librarian since Melvil Dewey”. And Moon himself, considered a “radical” in the library world, had once warned a researcher that “interviewing Ralph Shaw in the morning was like having “six martinis for breakfast”. Eventually, Moon replaced Shaw as chief editor of Scarecrow press as he faced his battle with cancer and treatment and they had conflicts in the interim. Scarecrow was sold to Grolier in 1969. The company still publishes for the academic community. It “was purchased in 1995 by University Press of America and moved from its Metuchen, New Jersey, headquarters to Lanham, Maryland, where it is now a member of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group". Ralph Shaw had is first job in a library at the age of 16 when he worked as a page at the Cleveland Public Library. He obtained his BA in 1928 from the Adelbert College Western Reserve University and then subsequently a library science bachelor's degree from the library school at Columbia University in 1929.