Robert V. Williams
Robert V. Williams (1938-2017) was an American historian of information science.
Robert Virgil ("Bob") Williams was born October 10, 1938 in Florida and in 1978 became a faculty member of the University of South Carolina College of Information and Communications specializing in public and special libraries and the history of information science. He retired in 2004, but remained active. He died January 14, 2017.
Williams held an MS in library and information science from Florida State University, an MA in history from New York University, and a PhD in library and information studies from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Before joining the University of South Carolina, he was an archivist and information services manager for the Ford Foundation, and the Georgia Department of Archives and History.
Williams has also been an information consultant for many organizations including Appalachian Council of Governments of Greenville, South Carolina, and the Pontifical Catholic University Madre y Maestra, Dominican Republic.
He was the Eugene Garfield Fellow in the History of Scientific Information at the Science History Institute in 1997 and conducted oral history interviews.
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
Numerous publications relating to public libraries, special libraries, and the history of libraries and information science.
Examples:
- "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
Organizations
Williams was a member of the South Carolina Historical Records Advisory Board, the American Library Association (ALA), and the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST), where was co-founder and served as chair of ASIST Special Interest Group for the History and Foundations of Information Science in 1994–1995. Williams is also a member of the Special Libraries Association (SLA) and Chair of the SLA Membership Committee.
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.