Rayward shares expertise on Otlet

Rayward interview

Professor Emeritus W. Boyd Rayward was recently interviewed in Mons, Belgium, at a meeting of scholars involved in the HyperOtlet research project. This multi and transdisciplinary project is focused on Le Traité de documentation, a major book in the history of information sciences that was written in 1934 by Paul Otlet, a Belgian lawyer, bibliographer, internationalist, and pacifist whose ideas foreshadowed current digital and other technologies such as the Internet, hypertext, and Wikipedia.

The goal of HyperOtlet is "to study the articulation between documentation technologies and modes of knowledge organization, presentation, and visualization." Collaborators on the project include the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Sciences d’Information et des Bibliothèques in Lyon; the laboratory, Médiations, Informations, Communications, Arts of the Université Bordeaux Montaigne; the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris; and The Mundaneum,  the Archive Centre of the Wallonia-Brussels Fédération, in Mons. HyperOtlet is supported by the French Centre de Recherche Scientifique.

Rayward, a historian of information science and the scholar who brought attention to the life and work of Otlet, also serves as a member of the Scientific Committee of a symposium to mark the culmination of HyperOtlet. The symposium will be held in March 2021 in Paris.

Rayward is an emeritus professor in the iSchool at Illinois and the School of Information Systems, Technology and Management of the University of New South Wales. He earned a PhD from the University of Chicago and an MS in library science from the University of Illinois. During his career, he has held professorial and deanship positions; has served as editor for Library Quarterly, Library Trends, and special issues of several journals; and was awarded the 2004 American Society for Information Science and Technology Research Award.

Research Areas:
Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

Tibebu joins the School

The iSchool is pleased to announce that Haileleol Tibebu joined the faculty as a teaching assistant professor on January 1, 2025. His research and teaching interests include responsible AI, AI policy and governance, algorithmic fairness, and the intersection of technology and society.

Haileleol Tibebu

Rhinesmith joins the faculty

The iSchool is pleased to announce that Colin Rhinesmith joined the faculty as a visiting associate professor on January 1, 2025. His position will become permanent following approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. He previously served as founder and director of the Digital Equity Research Center at the Metropolitan New York Library Council.

Colin Rhinesmith

SafeRBot to assist community, police in crime reporting

Across the nation, 911 dispatch centers are facing a worker shortage. Unfortunately, this understaffing, plus the nature of the job itself, leads to dispatchers who are often overworked and stressed. Meanwhile, when community members need to report a crime, their options are to contact 911 for an emergency or, in a non-emergency situation, call a non-emergency number or fill out an online form. A new chatbot, SafeRBot, designed and developed by Associate Professor Yun Huang, Informatics PhD student Yiren Liu, and BSIS student Tony An seeks to improve the reporting process for non-emergency situations for both community members and dispatch centers.

Yun Huang

New digital collection sheds light on queer nightlife in Champaign County

Adam Beaty decided to pursue an MSLIS degree to combine his love of history, the arts, and community-centered spaces. This combination of interests culminated in a 244-item digital collection that showcases digitized materials depicting nearly thirty years of queer nightlife in Champaign County. 

Adam Beaty_headshot

Hoiem receives Schiller Prize for “Education of Things”

Associate Professor Elizabeth Hoiem has won the 2025 Justin G. Schiller Prize from The Bibliographical Society of America for her book, The Education of Things: Mechanical Literacy in British Children's Literature, 1762-1860 (University of Massachusetts Press). The prize, which recognizes the best bibliographical work on pre-1951 children's literature, includes a cash award of $3,000 and a year's membership in the Society. 

Elizabeth Hoiem