My interests in research and writing in library and information science are broad, and a lengthy career has allowed me to contribute to diverse areas of the field for more than three decades. From working on expanding access to online systems beyond information professionals in the early 1980s to documenting the effects of perestroika on Russian research collaborations in the 1990s to sharing authorship of the 6th edition of a popular guide to the arts and humanities  in 2012, my primary goal has always been to improve people’s lives through access to information.  Examples of publications over the past years illustrate the diversity of my research interests, the variety of methods employed, and attention to both externally funded and institutionally supported work.

       

During the 1980s my academic work focused largely on expanding direct online access to users, including scientists, engineers, managers and students in elementary and secondary schools.  Resultant publications appeared in major journals including Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Scientometrics, School Library Media Quarterly, and Online.  In the 1990s I spent four years outside the academy in the corporate research department of the Institute for Scientific Information (now part of Thomson Reuters); there I contributed to Current Contents, Professional Publishing Update, and the proceedings of national and international conferences with special attention to the US and Latin America.  In 1994 I began 17 consecutive years as dean or director of three different library and information science programs. During that period, my research was concentrated in two areas: LIS education and studies about research productivity, funding and collaboration.  Publications have included chapters in Advances in Librarianship and Staff Planning in a Time of Demographic Change; papers in COLLNET Journal of Scientometrics and Information Management;  works in proceedings of international conferences in scientometrics,  bibliometrics, and LIS education; and numerous invited keynote addresses and presentations at regional, national, and international conferences and colloquia.  My work over the last decade has also included research reports and briefings for organizations such as the Alabama Public Library Service (APLS), Redstone Scientific Information Center (US Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development, and Engineering Center) and several universities. 

   

From the 1980s until 2000 I collaborated with Ron Blazek on the 3rd through 5th editions of The Humanities A Selective Guide to Information Sources.  This work has now been thoroughly revised with a new title.  Authored by Anna Perrault and myself, with contributed chapters by colleagues at UA and the University of South Florida, Information Resources in the Humanities and Arts is scheduled for publication in late 2012.