1996 NYAAPOR OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT AWARD WINNER:
Albert Gollin
Biography
Albert Gollin, a sociologist and public opinion researcher who earned an international reputation for his studies of newspaper advertising and readership trends, died March 24 at his home in Manhattan. He was 68.
His death came after a long battle with multiple systems degeneration, also called Shy-Drager syndrome, related to Parkinson's disease, said his wife, Ann.
Dr. Gollin was given the Distinguished Career Award for the Practice of Sociology from the American Sociological Association in 1994 and, in 1998, the Distinguished Achievement Award by the American Association for Public Opinion Research; he was president of the organization in the 1980's.
Dr. Gollin was born in Chicago on Dec. 8, 1930. He received a B.A. in psychology at Queens College in 1952 and a Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University in 1967.
His research career began in 1958 as a study director at Columbia University's Bureau of Applied Social Research. He later spent 14 years at the Bureau of Social Science Research in Washington. There, he conducted research on the sociological characteristics of Peace Corps volunteers, as well as those who participated in the 1963 March on Washington and the 1968 Poor People's Campaign.
''He always had an interest in civil rights,'' said Dr. Gollin's first wife, Gillian Lindt, a professor of religion and dean of faculty emerita at Columbia University.
In 1977, Dr. Gollin joined the Newspaper Advertising Bureau, a trade association in New York City that was then part of the American Newspaper Publishers Association, as an associate research director.
In 1994, Dr. Gollin retired from the Newspaper Association of America, which was created by the merger of the American Newspaper Publishers Association and several other trade groups in 1992. At the time of his retirement, he was vice president and research director.
He was also a senior resident fellow at the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center at Columbia University during the 1995-96 academic year.
In addition to his wife, Dr. Gollin is survived by a son, Mark of Seattle, and a daughter, Karin of Manila, a grandchild, three stepchildren and four step-grandchildren.
