11th Annual Doctoral Research Forum - students and faculty(2013)
“ILS has one of the oldest continuously running doctoral programs in the nation, and is among the top-producing in number of doctoral graduates (MPACT, 2014).”
Founded in 1964, the Ph.D. in Information Science celebrates 50 years of ILS leadership education this year. Indiana University is ranked fifth and sixth in the country for longevity and number of graduates in information and library science. (MPACT, 2014).
We look to the future as we celebrate some of the accomplishments of our over 180 alumni. Our Ph.D. graduates have gone on to become deans of schools, directors of departments, directors of doctoral programs, deans and directors of libraries, Editors of journals, Information directors in industry, and presidents of national professional associations. They have written numerous books, articles, and conference papers. They have been teachers of thousands of students over the past 50 years. In turn, their students are now becoming leaders in the field. They have embraced the basic philosophy of the discipline of “helping connect people to the information they need”—and their efforts will make a difference for years to come.
Our Ph.D. alumni leaders with significant impact and influence on the field of information and library science include:
- Dr. Charles Davis (Ph.D.’69)—our 3rd Ph.D. graduate—served as the dean of the faculty of library science at the University of Alberta, Canada and then as dean of the graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois.
- Dr. Fred Roper (Ph.D.’71) served as dean of the School of Library and Information Science at the University of South Carolina. He was a past President of the Medical Library Association.
- Dr. David Loertscher (Ph.D.’73) was head of the editorial department of Libraries Unlimited.
- Dr. Benjamin Speller (Ph.D.’73) served as the dean of the School of Library and Information Science at North Carolina Central University.
- Dr. Blanche Woolls (Ph.D.’73) was the director of the School of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University. She was a past president of both the American Association of School Librarians and the International Association of School Librarianship.
- Dr. Peter Hernon (Ph.D.’78) served as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Academic Librarianship, and the founding editor of Government Information Quarterly.
- Dr. John V. Richardson, Jr. (Ph.D.’78) was editor of the Library Quarterly.
- Dr. Betty Jo Irvine (Ph.D.’82) served as head of the Indiana University Fine Arts Library. She was also a past president of the Art Libraries Society of North America.
- Dr. Debora Shaw (Ph.D.’83) served as the dean of the School of Library and Information Science at Indiana University. She was a past president of the American Society of Information Science and Technology.
- Dr. Margaret Fung (Ph.D.’84) was president of the Library Association of China in Taipei.
- Dr. William Crowe (Ph.D.’86) served as the dean of Libraries at the University of Kansas, and as the president of the OCLC Users Council.
- Dr. Connie Van Fleet (Ph.D.’90) was president of the Association for Library and Information Science Education.
- Dr. William Wellburn (Ph.D. ’91) is the associate provost for diversity and inclusion at Marquette University.
- Dr. Zainal Hasibuan (Ph.D.’95) served as the vice executive chairman, Indonesian ICT Council, Jakarta, Indonesia and as a faculty member in the computer science department at the University of Indonesia.
Help Future Doctoral Students:
To help support and encourage doctoral students Dr. Blanche Woolls (Ph.D. '73) established the Doctoral Scholarship for students in the Ph.D. in Information Science in 2010. If you would like to contribute to the fund, contact Mary Beth Roska, ILS alumni liaison within the School of Informatics and Computing at mroska@indiana.edu.