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

iSchool instructors ranked as excellent

Fifty-four iSchool instructors were named in the University's List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent for Spring 2024. The rankings are released every semester, and results are based on the Instructor and Course Evaluation System (ICES) questionnaire forms maintained by Measurement and Evaluation in the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning. 

New grant to create inclusive learning environment and advance workplace equity

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Assistant Professor JooYoung Seo a four-year, $459,000 grant to create inclusive learning environments and advance workplace equity for persons with disabilities in STEM fields. The project will build on Seo's work in developing open-source tools that can augment visual charts into touchable (braille), readable (text), and audible (sound) representations.

JooYoung Seo

Chen appointed interim executive associate dean

Jiangping Chen assumed the position of interim executive associate dean and visiting professor on August 16. In this role, she will work closely with Dean Eunice E. Santos to realize the iSchool's strategic goals and objectives. She also will provide leadership for the internal administration of the School, including oversight for the work of associate deans and assigned staff as well as the coordination of faculty affairs. Chen's position will become permanent following approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.

Jiangping Chen

Huang awarded Linowes Fellowship

Associate Professor Yun Huang has been named a 2024-2025 Linowes Fellow by the Cline Center for Advanced Social Research at the University of Illinois. The fellowship "provides exceptionally promising tenure-stream faculty with opportunities for innovation and discovery using the Cline Center's data holdings and/or analytic tools."

Yun Huang

New project to prepare global and area studies units for emerging technologies

A project led by the Game Studies and Design (GSD) program in Informatics has been selected to receive the Illinois Global Institute New Approaches to International Area and Global Studies grant. The project, "Extending Capacities of Area and Global Studies to Shape the Future of Emerging Technologies," is the inaugural recipient of the two-year, $30,000 award.

Judith Pintar