School of Information Sciences

Black to speak at Trans-Atlantic Dialogues conference

Alistair Black
Alistair Black, Professor Emeritus

How do heritages travel? How is trans-Atlantic tourism shaped by heritage? To what extent have traditions crossed and recrossed the Atlantic?

Professor Alistair Black and fellow scholars from both sides of the Atlantic will gather in Liverpool, UK, July 13-16 to discuss these questions. Trans-Atlantic Dialogues on Cultural Hertiage: Heritage, Tourism, and Traditions is hosted jointly by the University of Birmingham’s Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage and the University of Illinois’s Collaborative for Cultural Heritage Management and Policy.

Black will deliver a talk titled, “The Mid-Twentieth Century Librarian as Observer, Ambassador, and Tourist: Towards a History of Excursions by British Librarians to the United States.”

From the abstract: Visits by librarians to the United States are an overlooked aspect of trans-Atlantic cultural exchange. Although there is a long tradition of cultural visits by individuals who have had an interest in library and book heritage as a facet of a broader intellectual motivation, it was not until the rise of professional librarianship in the last quarter of the nineteenth-century that visits were organized with the specific purpose of employing recorded experience to expand library provision and improve library services. By the mid-twentieth century, travel by British librarians to view library developments in the United States had become an established feature of British librarianship. Visitors fulfilled the tripartite role of observer, ambassador, and tourist...This paper forms part of what can become a much larger study of British librarians who in the formative decades of the library profession undertook excursions to the United States to study its library systems.

Black’s research interests include the history of librarianship and information management; the history of corporate magazines, corporate libraries, and information bureaux; and the history of library design. He teaches courses in information history, library buildings and society, historical foundations of the information society, public library history, and libraries in film. Black was named the 2014-2015 Centennial Scholar at GSLIS, which recognizes outstanding accomplishments and/or professional promise in the field of library and information science.

Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

iSchool researchers present at CSCW 2025

Several faculty, students, and recent grads will present their research at the 28th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2025), which will be held October 18–22 in Bergen, Norway. The online portion of the conference will be held on October 10. 

iSchool faculty and staff present at AISLE annual conference

Join the iSchool for the Association of Illinois School Library Educators (AISLE) annual conference, held October 5–7 at the I Hotel and Conference Center in Champaign, Illinois. The theme for the conference is “Libraries Build Connections.”

Downie appointed executive associate dean

The iSchool is pleased to announce that Professor J. Stephen Downie has been appointed executive associate dean. In this role, he will work closely with Interim Dean Emily Knox to realize the iSchool's strategic goals and objectives. He also will provide leadership for the internal administration of the School, coordinate the work of associate deans and assigned staff, and facilitate faculty affairs.

Stephen Downie

Join the iSchool at the 2025 ALISE annual conference

Join iSchool faculty, staff, and students for the annual conference of the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE), which will take place from October 6–8 in Kansas City, Missouri. The theme of the 2025 conference is "Decolonising Pedagogies: Agency, Identity, Practices."

School of Information Sciences

501 E. Daniel St.

MC-493

Champaign, IL

61820-6211

Voice: (217) 333-3280

Fax: (217) 244-3302

Email: ischool@illinois.edu

Back to top