Published by PhotoBook Press 2836 Lyndale Ave. S. Minneapolis, MN 55408 Designed at the School of Information and Library Science University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 216 Lenoir Drive CB#3360, 100 Manning Hall Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3360 The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is committed to equality of educational opportunity. The University does not discriminate in o fering access to its educational programs and activities on the basis of age, gender, race, color, national origin, religion, creed, disability, veteran’s status or sexual orientation. The Dean of Students (01 Steele Building, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-5100 or 919.966.4042) has been designated to handle inquiries regarding the University’s non-discrimination policies. © 2007 Illuminating the Past A history of the first 75 years of the University of North Carolina’s School of Information and Library Science Illuminating the past, imagining the future! Dear Friends, Welcome to this beautiful memory book for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science (SILS). As part of our commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the School, the words and photographs in these pages will give you engaging views of the rich history we share. These are memories that do indeed illuminate our past and chal- lenge us to imagine a vital and innovative future. In the 1930’s when SILS began, the United States had fallen from being the land of opportunity to a country focused on eco- nomic survival. The income of the average American family had fallen by 40%, unemployment was at 25% and it was a perilous time for public education, with most communities struggling to afford teachers and textbooks for their children. Given this backdrop, it is even more impressive what the early SILS administrators, faculty and students were able to create and accomplish. The 1930’s were also, however, a time when people eagerly sought out information and knowledge. Franklin Roosevelt was one of many who influenced millions through radio broadcasts, and families delightedly tuned in to radio dramas and comedy shows, from the Lone Ranger to George Burns and Gracie Allen. There were over 1300 foreign language newspapers being published in the United States and tens of thousands in English. It was the golden age of the mystery novel, as people escaped into the books of authors like Agatha Christie and Dashiell Hammett. Theater flourished, movie studios created Hollywood’s “Golden Age” and young people danced to the music of the Big Bands. And from F. Scott Fitzgerald and John Steinbeck to Carl Sandburg and Dr. Seuss, the era produced some of our country’s most distinguished and memorable fiction, poetry and children’s books. While 75 years is a long time, many things have remained constant. Perhaps the most significant constant is that people continue to seek out knowledge in its many forms and media. And the role that the founders of SILS understood and chose to sharpen, that of trusted knowledge professionals who can guide and assist others to access, organize, visualize, create, share and archive the information and knowledge they need and want, is today more in demand than ever. As we at SILS look forward to the next 75 years and beyond, what does distinguish our world from that of the 1930’s is the pace of change in the creation, sharing and archiving of knowledge. It took radio 38 years to reach an audience of 50 million and TV took 13 years. The Internet took only five years to involve that many users, MySpace took three years and both the iPod and YouTube took only one year to reach that same 50-million-user milestone. ENIAC, considered the first true computer, did more arithmetic in 11 years than the entire human race had from 50,000 B.C.E. to 1945. The amount of information produced in print and electronic format has more than doubled in the last three years, and it is expected to more than quadruple in the next year. Successfully navigating through this ever-growing universe of knowledge is one of the key challenges of the 21st century. So the need for SILS endeavors and graduates has possibly never been as great as it is today. And as Lewis Carroll said, “It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backward.” The past 75 years have positioned us to proceed energetically and optimistically with the design and building of a new facility over the next few years, correlated with a comprehensive review, reshaping and expansion of the School. As you will see as you read through this book, it has taken many people and ideas to get us to where we are today, and it will take many more if SILS is to attain a future worthy of our past. We hope you will join with us as we move into the next 75 years of the distinguished progression of the School, illuminating the past and imagining the future. Sincerely, José-Marie Griffiths, Dean Fall, 2007 Table of Contents 6 The Library School in Chapel Hill An essay by David Carr, Associate Professor 20 Imagining the Future Profiles of the 12 deans who have led the School of Information and Library Science 36 Illuminating the Past Photos and events from the first 75 years of the School of Information and Library Science 100 Alumni Seventy-five years of graduates from the School of Information and Library Science 118 Index 119 Colophon 5 The Library School in Chapel Hill Essay by David Carr, Associate Professor School of Information and Library Science University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 6 In the early years of our library school in Chapel Hill, a prospective student might have wondered how, exactly, to travel here. The second sentence of an early catalog gets directly to the point: “One leaves the train at Durham (twelve miles distant), Raleigh (thirty miles distant), or Greensboro (fifty miles distant) and takes a bus.” One would be living in a very different world than the one we live in now, seventy-five years after the founding of education for librarianship at Carolina. One would have a number of things to think of while on that train or bus. In the fourth decade of the Twentieth Century, the Great Depression was deep and constraining: possibilities were scarce, higher education was unusual, and one might not readily be able to invest in it. The tuition at the School in 1931-1932 was $25 per quarter (for North Carolina residents), twice that for those from out of state. Room and board typically would add as much as $400 to the quarterly bill. Still, an arrival in Chapel Hill for library school would have meant that a risky decision had been made. But, gazing out the window in that first decade, contemplating the decision to study librarianship, not all the dimensions of the future would be clear. The period of the Great Depression and the early New Deal contains many fateful moments, very few of them significant at the time. In this period, the cyclotron is invented; the atom is split; the radioactive metal plutonium is identified and produced; plastics ap- pear. Television exists; so do rockets, the electron microscope, and the electric guitar. American women have been able to vote for more than a decade. About 40 percent of Americans are high school graduates. Fewer than 20 percent of Americans graduate from college. Child labor is legal. Union actions often lead to violence: vigilantes kill miners in Kentucky; police kill strikers in Michigan, Ohio, and Rhode Island. William Faulkner publishes As I Lay Dying, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom! John Steinbeck writes Of Mice and Men. The Grapes of Wrath will appear at the end of the decade. Richard Wright publishes Uncle Tom’s Children and Thomas Wolfe publishesOf Time and the River. Alfred Hitchcock directs The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Thirty-Nine Steps, and The Lady Vanishes. Japan occupies Manchuria, goes to war in China. Adolph Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany; fascism overtakes Europe; the Holocaust begins. Aldous Huxley publishes Brave New World as our school is born. 7 For the student of library One would likely have been unaware of these things while traveling to Chapel Hill to at- and information sci- tend library school, but more than seventy years on, the world and the nation were clearly incubating ence today, despite all great social transformations at that time. European dictatorships were finding deep roots and testing the changes of contexts and tools, the wars and out their terrible, unrestrained powers; a worldly wariness and anticipation would have been wise, if worldwide transforma- not prescient. The sudden revolutions of technology, soon to be sped up by world war, had begun to tions, the motives and quicken. Great works of art, serious and popular, were leavening the crusts of industry, politics and values one brings to Chapel Hill might well economics. Most Americans were living humbly with their losses, an unknown future looming. resemble those of seventy- Looking back, a librarian in the class of 1932, or 1936, or 1940, would have graduated into a five years ago. world of nearly exploding knowledge, imminent fearful events, growing industry and science, and great need for economic, educational and social progress, especially in the Southern United States. Even with the arrival of a more open and more progressive world—and a less differentiated na- tion—our students continue to emerge into such a world. For the student of library and information science today, despite all the changes of contexts and tools, the wars and worldwide transformations, the motives and values one brings to Chapel Hill might well resemble those of seventy-five years ago.