This sad news was brought to our attention today and though we learned of it later than most, we couldn’t let it go by without mentioning. Frederick Wilfrid Lancaster, 79, of Urbana, passed away on Sunday, August 25, 2013 in his home.
Lancaster was a British-American information scientist who immigrated to the United States in the late 50’s and worked as an information specialist at the National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland, as well as the University of Illinois, Urbana, as a professor. Most know Lancaster from his lectures and articles on the evolution of librarianship in the 20th and 21st century. He had a comprehensive list of books (15 to be exact), some of which were named book of the year by the American Society for Information Science or the American Library Association.
His obituary called him a husband, father, grandfather, author, mentor, educator, friend, and curmudgeon. Added to that list by our own Margie Hlava, “my information science hero.” He will be missed.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in taxonomies, metadata, and semantic enrichment to make your content findable.
