School of Information Sciences

Donald Davis passes away

Don Davis

Donald G. Davis (PhD '72), one of three alumni who launched the iSchool at Illinois' endowed Professorship in the History of Libraries and the Information Professions, passed away on November 21, 2024. Born in 1939, he was raised and educated in California, earning a bachelor's degree in history from the University of California, Los Angeles and master's degrees in history and library and information science from the University of California, Berkeley. He earned his doctorate in library and information science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His dissertation was titled "The Association of American Library Schools: An Analytical History." Davis received an MA from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in 1996 and began his service as a lay minister in the Presbyterian Church.

He accepted a teaching position at the University of Texas at Austin, where in 2005 he retired after 34 rewarding years as professor in the School of Information, and more recently, the Department of History. In 1976, he became editor of the Journal of Library History (which he retitled Libraries & Culture), a position that he held for over thirty years. He co-edited the Encyclopedia of Library History (1994) and edited the second supplement to the Dictionary of American Library Biography (2003).

In 1999, Davis received the Beta Phi Mu Golden Anniversary Distinguished Award. In 2006, the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress issued Libraries & Culture: Historical Essays Honoring the Legacy of Donald G. Davis, Jr., a collection of major essays that he had seen into print. The American Library Association (ALA) Library History Round Table presents the Donald G. Davis Article Award every even-numbered year to recognize the best article in library history.

Throughout his career, Davis published twenty books (including edited works and conference proceedings), and more than one hundred articles and two hundred reviews. He advised numerous doctoral students, and he and his wife Avis routinely welcomed international students, visiting scholars, librarians, and other guests into their home. For twenty years, Davis participated in the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), and he lectured and consulted in fifteen different countries. He wrote that "Librarianship has become a pervasive profession—it is global in reach geographically and socioeconomically.  A librarian in trouble in a foreign country needs only to contact the nearest library . . .  to get connected to the worldwide network of colleagues in a variety of knowledge institutions." Davis had, in effect, if not in name, emerged as a global ambassador on behalf of library and information services and professional education.

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