The influence of F. W. Lancaster on information science and on libraries: notes on the scope of this Festschrift

Library Trends, Spring, 2008 by Lorraine J. Haricombe, Keith Russell

ABSTRACT

Over a period of four decades F. W. Lancaster has continuously emerged as a visionary leader in the field of library and information science. His research, writings, and teachings have earned him the highest honors in the profession. Lancaster excelled at many fronts: as scholar, educator, mentor, and writer. This essay summarizes the personalized contributions of Lancaster's friends, family, students, colleagues, and scholars in the field to celebrate and pay homage to him for his life's work.

INTRODUCTION

F. W. Lancaster's accomplishments span four decades and they are numerous. Long after Lancaster's active career and formal retirement in 1992, his work and his writings remain foundations in the field of library and information science in the United States and around the world. The idea of a personalized Festschrift to honor Lancaster's work and his impact was widely embraced by many in the profession. It was quickly followed by commitments from authors and contributors to participate in this project that we fondly labeled as a "labor of love." The contributors we selected for this work include Lancaster's friends, students, colleagues, and other specialists who are known for their expertise and their own contributions to the professional literature. While all authors had some flexibility to develop their own approach for their particular topic, we encouraged them to make this a personal Festschrift, connecting each article to Lancaster in some way.

Unlike most Festschrifts, this, the second Festschrift to honor Lancaster, is a personalized tribute to his magnificence and his contributions in a number of areas that advanced the field of information science. (1) The idea to publish this Festschrift as a special issue of Library Trends seems most apt to honor one who has served as its editor for more than two decades.

We are former students of Lancaster's and felt deeply honored when we were approached to serve as guest editors for the Festschrift. Keith Russell was a master's student in the early 1970s at the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS), and had two classes with Lancaster--information retrieval and vocabulary control. Lorraine Haricombe completed her MLIS ('88) and PhD ('92) at GSLIS, where she took several of Lancaster's classes including one of the four (then) required doctoral seminars. Lancaster also served as her dissertation advisor. Like so many of Lancaster's students, we credit him with having significant impact on our lives at the personal level and at the professional level.

Neither one of us has ever edited a Festschrift. In fact, Keith had never heard of a Festschrift until he took Kathyrn Luther Henderson's cataloging course at GSLIS, and in one class assignment had to create a 3x5 catalog card entry for a Festschrift. Consequently, as we proceeded with developing this Festschrift, we explored earlier Festschrifts in library and information science, and in other fields.

We found, for example, that several faculty members at GSLIS have had Festschrifts to complement their careers. These include Pauline Atherton Cochrane (Wheeler, 2000), Herbert Goldhor (Powell, 1989), Kathryn Luther Henderson (Smith & Carter, 1996), and Donald W. Krummel (Hunter, 1994). We also noted that at least one GSLIS graduate, Ruth C. Carter, had been celebrated in a Festschrift (Holley, 2007). And we reviewed the aforementioned earlier Festschrift that honored Lancaster, the proceedings of a conference in Germany.

As we were working on this Festschrift, Keith observed firsthand the impact of Lancaster's work on the current scientific community. He attended a research seminar by Anne Maglia, a faculty member from the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Missouri-Rolla. Her presentation described her work creating three-dimensional online anatomical representations of amphibians and their development. In the last part of her talk, she described efforts she and her colleagues are making to facilitate research on amphibian anatomy. In particular, they are creating a database that covers three hundred years of literature on amphibian anatomy, on hundreds of organisms, published in many languages and a wide range of monographs and journals. Sources often used different terms for the same anatomical feature, and researchers often lost valuable time figuring out proper terms to use. She commented that she and her colleagues are using the best information retrieval software available to find and manipulate the information from all those sources about all those organisms, and that they are using established vocabulary control software and protocols to help straighten out what each anatomical feature should be called, and what synonyms and related terms had been used. Wow! Lancaster was one of the pioneers in the 1960s and 1970s that defined, described, and developed some of the principles and techniques for computerized information retrieval systems and for vocabulary control. Keith introduced himself and spoke with Anne at the conclusion of the seminar and mentioned that a Festschrift was being done for one of the key researchers and educators whose earlier work no doubt had helped her with her research today. Her work is reflected in Maglia, Leopold, Pugener, & Gauch, 2007.