Lionel Topaz was born in Russia May 15, 1875. He moved to England in 1897 and came to America 1903. He married in Boston in 1904 and had three children, Mae, Oscar, and Martin. Topaz established "The Optometric Weekly" in 1910 and founded The Professional Press, Inc. in 1919. He was the publisher of numerous books in the field of visual optics and a close friend of Charles Sheard, author, researcher and educator for whom Ohio State's Sheard Foundation for Research in Vision is named. Topaz died in Chicago, Illinois on July 23, 1942.

The Lionel Topaz Memorial Library of Visual Science was dedicated October 31, 1955. The library was located in the Optometry Building on W. Tenth Ave., behind Hamilton Hall. The building was partly financed through a development fund started by Lionel's children, who sought to erect a memorial to their father. The fund also received contributions by the optometrists of the state and nation on a campaign which raised $106,000 toward the library's cost.

In 1987, due to cost increases and difficulty in maintaining a current optometry collection, the Lionel Topaz Memorial Library of Visual Science merged with the Health Sciences Library. Although several reference books were left in Fry Hall at the request of faculty to maintain a reading room collection, approximately 4,000 volumes were moved to the Health Sciences Library. This collection of unique optometry books was added to the Coleman Alcove, the rare book collection of the Health Sciences Library housed in the Medical Heritage Center. Donated by Dr. Richard Hall and Dr. Charles Sheard, these materials were given to the Optometry Department to exemplify the developments in the field of optometry.

At the time of its closing, the Topaz Library was the oldest departmental library at Ohio State and the largest, most complete optometry library in the world.