Harry Bruce

Harry Bruce is an Australian-born professor, as well as the former Dean of the Information School at the University of Washington. His scholarly research focuses on how people locate, manage, and utilize information in digital settings, with extensive writing on information behavior and personal information management in the digital age. In addition to the ASIS&T Award of Merit (2022), Bruce received the ASIS Doctoral Dissertation Award (1997) and served as ASIS&T President (2014).

Photo Available @ https://ischool.uw.edu/people/faculty/profile/harryb

Life

Bruce is from Sydney, Australia. He received a B.A. in English literature from Macquarie University in 1982, a Master of Library Science from the Kuring-gai College of Advanced Education in 1988, and a Ph.D. in library science from the University of New South Wales in 1996.

He and his wife Lorraine have two daughters.

Contributions

Following the completion of his PhD, Bruce worked in academic and library positions in Australia for several years including as faculty of the School of Information Studies at the University of Technology Sydney (his paper on relevance was the first from that school to be published in JASIST). He moved to the United States to join the University of Washington Graduate School of Library & Information Science, then led by Michael Eisenberg, in 1998. He took on several leadership positions there, including Associate Dean for Research and Director of the Center for Collaboration and Creativity. In 2001 the school was renamed the Information School. From 2006 to 2017 he was Dean, University of Washington Information School.

During his time as dean, Bruce guided the iSchool through a period of significant growth, with the iSchool expanding its faculty and launching several new programs in information management and data science. Under his deanship, in 2017 the iSchool was ranked #2 overall in the United States by the U.S. News & World Report. Following his deanship, he has continued to work within the iSchool as professor and dean emeritus since 2019.

Bruce's research focuses primarily on how people seek and use information in digital environments. His work explores the relationships between personal information practices, digital learning, information literacy, and online privacy. He has given keynote addresses at symposiums and conferences in Taipei, Hong Kong, Wuhan, Riyadh, and Sydney, in addition to over two-dozen unpublished presentations at numerous events across the United States, Europe, and Asia. He has authored, co-authored, or edited several books on information behavior and information science, and has published over 30 refereed journal articles and conference papers.

Publications

• Bruce, H. (2014). President's page. Bulletin of ASIST 41 (1): 3-5. https://doi.org/10.1002/bult.2014.1720410102
• Bruce, Harry. (2011). The audacious vision of information schools. Journal of Library and Information Science [Taiwan] 37 (1): 4-10. https://jlis.glis.ntnu.edu.tw/ojs/index.php/jlis/article/view/546
• Bruce, H., Richardson, D.J. and Eisenberg, M. (2006). The I-conference: Gathering of the clans of information. Bulletin of ASIST 32 (4): 11-12. https://doi.org/10.1002/bult.2006.1720320405
• Bruce, H. (2002). The user's view of the internet. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
• Harry Bruce, Raya Fidel, Peter Ingwersen, and Pertti Vakkari (Eds.). (2002). Emerging frameworks and methods: Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science (CoLIS 4). ISBN 978-1-59158-016-4
• Harry Bruce, William Jones, and Susan Dumais. (2004). Information behavior that keeps found things found. Information Research 10(1), https://informationr.net/ir/10-1/paper207.html
• Bruce, H.W. (1994). A cognitive view of the situational dynamism of user-centered relevance estimation. JASIS 45 (3): 142-148. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(199404)45:3<142::AID-ASI4>3.0.CO;2-6

Full list also available.

Awards

• ASIST Award of Merit, 2022
• American Library Association Tribute Resolution, Annual Conference, Chicago, June 2017
• UMI ASIS Doctoral Dissertation Award, 1997 for "A User-Oriented View of Internet as Information Infrastructure"

Further Reading

• "Harry Bruce (academic)". Wikipedia. 2026.[1]
• "Harry Bruce | iSchool Directory". ischool.uw.edu. 2026.[2]
• "Harry Bruce to Receive the Association for Information Science and Technology 2022 Award of Merit". ASIST.org. 2022-06-19.[3]
• "Harry Bruce | Information School, University of Washington". faculty.washington.edu. 2018.[4]
• "iSchool Tribute to Harry Bruce". harry.ischool.uw.edu. 2017-03-22.[5]