[FYI] ALA Melvil Dewey Medal recipient named

[Terry Kuny]

August 11, 1997
IFLA Press Release

ALA Melvil Dewey Medal recipient named

Robert Wedgeworth, university librarian and professor of library
administration at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
is the 1997 recipient of the American Library Association (ALA)
Melvil Dewey Award.

The award, a citation and medal donated by OCLC/Forest
Press,Inc., is given to an individual or group for recent
creative professionalachievement in library management, training,
cataloging and classification, and the tools and techniques of
librarianship.

Wedgeworth was dean of the School of Library Service at
Columbia University in New York from 1985-1992.  He was executive
director of ALA from 1985-1992.  He serves as a trustee for the
Newberry Library in Chicago and chairs ALA's Advisory Committee
for the Office of Information Technology.

"Robert Wedgeworth seemed a natural choice for this award
because of the parallels in his career and that of Melvil Dewey,
with Wedgeworth leading ALA as executive director, serving as
dean of the School of Library Service at Columbia, directing a
university library, and working toward the improvement of library
services through adoption of the information technology of the
day," said Janet Swan Hill, chair of the Dewey Award Jury.

Additionally, if the International Federation of Library
Associations and Institutions (IFLA) had existed when Dewey was
alive, I think it's likely that he, like Wedgeworth, would have
served as its president."

Wedgeworth is the author of "The Starvation of Young Black
Minds: The Effects of the Book Boycotts in South Africa," (1989)
and "Issues Affecting the Development of Digital Libraries in
Science and Technology" (1996).

He is the recipient of the International Council of Archives
Medal of Honor, the Most Distinguished Alumnus Award from the
University of Illinois and the 1989 ALA Joseph Lippincott Award.

He received a bachelor's degree from Wabash College in
Crawfordsville, Ind., and a master's degree from the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.