Robert V. Williams

Robert V. Williams (1938-2017) was an American historian of information science.

Robert V. ("Bob") Williams, was born October 10, 1938 in Florida. and died January 14, 2017. He was also a Presbyterian elder.

He was faculty member of the University of South Carolina. College of Information and Communications. Retired in 2004, but remained active.

Works

Projects

Bob Williams initiated a wide range of projects.

• Co-founder with Michael Buckland of the ASIST Special Interest Group in the History and Foundations of Information Science (SIG HFIS), 1994(?).
• Numerous oral history recordings.
• Bibliographies of information science history.
• Didactic videos.
• Created and archival studies program.
• Adjunct editor, Journal of Library History.

Publications

• "George Whitefield's Bethesda: The Orphanage, The College and the Library." In: Library History Seminar No. 3, Proceedings, 1968. Journal of Library History, 1968.
• "The Public Library as the Dependent Variable: Historically Oriented Theories and Hypotheses of Public Library Development." Journal of Library History 16, Iss. 2 (Spring 1981): 329-341.
• "Public Library Development in the United States, 1850-1870: An Empirical Analysis." Journal of Library History 21, Iss. 1 (Winter 1986): 177-201.
• "The Making of Statistics of National Scope on American Libraries, 1836-1986: Purposes, Problems, and Issues." Libraries and Culture 26, Iss. 2, (Spring 1991): 464-485.
• The information systems of international inter-governmental organizations : a reference guide. Stamford, CT: Ablex, 1998.
• Proceedings of the 1998 Conference on the History and Heritage of Science Information Systems, [1998 : Pittsburgh, PA] ed. by Mary Ellen Bowden, Trudi Bellardo Hahn and Robert V. Williams. Medford, N.J. : Published for the American Society for Information Science and the Chemical Heritage Foundation by Information Today, 1999.
• Covert and overt : recollecting and connecting intelligence service and information science, ed. by Robert V. Williams and Ben-Ami Lipetz. Medford, N.J. : Published for the American Society for Information Science and Technology by Information Today in cooperation with Scarecrow Press, 2005

Honors

• American Society for Information Science and Technology.
  • Received the Watson Davis Award for continuous dedicated leadership in and service to Association, 2011.
  • The Bob Williams Research Paper Award and Bob Williams Research Grant awards are named in his honor.
• The Special Libraries Association recognized him in 2003 for mentoring and teaching.

Further reading

• 'In memoriam: Dr. Robert V. Williams." University of South Carolina. College of Information and Communications. [Webpage] [1]