Clifford Lynch: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 21:35, 25 April 2026

Clifford Lynch (December 31, 1954 – April 10, 2025) was an American computer scientist and director of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) from 1997 to his death. He was also an adjunct professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information.

Life

Clifford Alan Lynch was born on December 31, 1954.[1] He grew up in New York City. He held a B.A in mathematics and computer science from Columbia College, an M.S. in computer science from the Columbia University School of Engineering, and a Ph.D. in computer science (1987) from the University of California, Berkeley.

He was married to Cecilia Preston.

Contributions

Early in his career, Lynch worked as a systems programmer at New York University in 1974. His supervisor Edwin Brownrigg recruited him to move to the University of California (UC) Berkeley in 1979 to help create an online public access catalog showing what was available across all nine of the University of California's campuses, in all roughly 100 libraries. Lynch contributed to MELVYL which launched in 1983. Lynch worked for 18 years at the University of California Office of the President, the last ten as Director of Library Automation. The UC participated in the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) which was established in 1990 and led by Paul Evan Peters. After completing his Ph.D., Lynch taught a course at UC Berkeley on database systems and information retrieval. In Spring 1991, Lynch began leading a seminar on Friday afternoons, open to the public, on current research topics with frequent guest speakers. He co-chaired the Friday Seminars until Spring 2025 (sixty-nine consecutive semesters).

Lynch served as President of ASIS in 1996-97. He gave many keynote presentations nationally and internationally and published prolifically.

In 1996, Lynch was selected to succeed the late Peters as CNI Executive Director. As Director, Lynch led the semiannual CNI membership meetings, promoting research and teaching through information technology. In August 2024, Lynch announced his retirement at the end of the program year. At the April 7-8, 2025 Spring Membership Meeting, CNI announced the forthcoming publication of a Festschrift in Lynch's honor. Lynch passed away on April 10, 2025.

Publications

For an extensive list of publications and interviews see Publications [2]

"Check Out the New Library: Clifford Lynch on information creation, management and organization in the digital environment." Ubiquity (July 2003), Article 6. Autobiographical interview. [3]

Awards

Festschrift edited by Joan K. Lippincott, "Networking Networks" in portal: Libraries and the Academy 25, no. 3 (July 2025): https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/55108
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Fellow, 2017
Association for Information Science and Technology. Award of Merit, 2008.
EDUCAUSE Leadership in Public Policy and Practice Award, 2005
ALA Joseph W. Lippincott Award, 2004
NISO Fellow, 2000
Homer I. Bernhardt Distinguished Service Award, ASEE ELD, 1995
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS - Information, Computing, and Communication) Fellow, 1993

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-''Note: this page is a stub.''
-Clifford Lynch...
+Clifford Lynch (December 31, 1954 – April 10, 2025) was an American computer scientist and director of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) from 1997 to his death. He was also an adjunct professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information.
 == Life ==
-Director of the Coalition for Networked Information.
+Clifford Alan Lynch was born on December 31, 1954.[https://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/events/2025/tribute-clifford-lynch] He grew up in New York City. He held a B.A in mathematics and computer science from Columbia College, an M.S. in computer science from the Columbia University School of Engineering, and a Ph.D. in computer science (1987) from the University of California, Berkeley.
+He was married to Cecilia Preston.
+== Contributions ==
+Early in his career, Lynch worked as a systems programmer at New York University in 1974. His supervisor Edwin Brownrigg recruited him to move to the University of California (UC) Berkeley in 1979 to help create an online public access catalog showing what was available across all nine of the University of California's campuses, in all roughly 100 libraries. Lynch contributed to MELVYL which launched in 1983. Lynch worked for 18 years at the University of California Office of the President, the last ten as Director of Library Automation. The UC participated in the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) which was established in 1990 and led by Paul Evan Peters. After completing his Ph.D., Lynch taught a course at UC Berkeley on database systems and information retrieval. In Spring 1991, Lynch began leading a seminar on Friday afternoons, open to the public, on current research topics with frequent guest speakers. He co-chaired the Friday Seminars until [https://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/events/2025/biography-digital-world Spring 2025] (sixty-nine consecutive semesters).
+Lynch served as President of ASIS in 1996-97. He gave many keynote presentations nationally and internationally and published prolifically.
+In 1996, Lynch was selected to succeed the late Peters as '''CNI Executive Director'''. As Director, Lynch led the semiannual CNI membership meetings, promoting research and teaching through information technology. In August 2024, Lynch announced his retirement at the end of the program year. At the April 7-8, 2025 Spring Membership Meeting, CNI announced the forthcoming publication of a Festschrift in Lynch's honor. Lynch passed away on April 10, 2025.
 == Publications ==
@@ Line 14: / Line 22: @@
 == Awards ==
-*[[ASIST|Association for information Science and Technology]]. Award of Merit, 2008.
+*Festschrift edited by Joan K. Lippincott, "Networking Networks" in ''portal:'' ''Libraries and the Academy'' 25, no. 3 (July 2025): https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/55108
+*Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Fellow, 2017
+*[[ASIST|Association for Information Science and Technology]]. '''Award of Merit''', 2008.
+*EDUCAUSE Leadership in Public Policy and Practice Award, 2005
+*ALA Joseph W. Lippincott Award, [https://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=archive&template=/contentmanagement/contentdisplay.cfm&ContentID=61654 2004]
+*NISO Fellow, 2000
+*Homer I. Bernhardt Distinguished Service Award, ASEE ELD, 1995
+*American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS - Information, Computing, and Communication) Fellow, 1993
 == Further Reading ==
@@ Line 21: / Line 36: @@
 *''Tribute to Clifford Lynch''. University of California, Berkeley. School of Information. May 2, 2025. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JtPKE1iUfU]
 *''Melvyl through time''. University of California. UC Libraries. [https://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/uclibrarysearch/melvyl-through-time/]
+*Hawkins, B. "Advancing Scholarship and Intellectual Productivity: An Interview with Clifford A. Lynch". ''EDUCAUSE Review''. 2006-03-17.[https://er.educause.edu/articles/2006/3/advancing-scholarship-and-intellectual-productivity-an-interview-with-clifford-a-lynch-part-1]
+*Aschenfelder, M. "Digital Preservation Pioneer: Clifford Lynch". ''The Signal: Digital Happenings at the Library of Congress''. 2013-05-29.[https://blogs.loc.gov/thesignal/2013/05/digital-preservation-pioneer-clifford-lynch/]
+*"In Memoriam - Clifford Lynch". ''ASIST.org''. 2025-04-14.[https://www.asist.org/2025/04/14/106739/]
+*ARL Communications. "Memorial: Clifford Lynch". ''Association of Research Libraries''. 2025-04-15.[https://www.arl.org/news/memorial-clifford-lynch/]
+*"In Memory of Clifford Lynch". ''UC Berkeley School of Information''. 2025-04-16.[https://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/news/2025/memory-clifford-lynch]
+*Buckland, Michael K. and AnnaLee Saxenian. "In Memoriam: Clifford Alan Lynch". ''UC Academic Senate''. 2025.[https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/in-memoriam/files/cliff-lynch.html]
+*Coleman, A. S. "Clifford Alan Lynch (1954-2025)." ''Librarians We Have Lost. ALA Institutional Repository''. 2025-08-06. https://hdl.handle.net/11213/23669
+*"Clifford Lynch". ''Wikipedia''. 2026.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Lynch]