Professor Bob Usherwood
BA (Open), PhD (Sheffield), Hon FLA, FCLIP, FRSA
Professor Emeritus
Contact Details
Email address: r.usherwood@sheffield.ac.uk
Teaching Interests
Public libraries and their communities; management including human resource management; professional ethics; intellectual freedom; political and policy dimension of libraries and information services; social and political aspects of information technology; qualitative research methods.
Research Interests
Public library services; value and social impact of library and information services; qualitative assessment of libraries, archives and museums management especially human resource management; books and reading; professional organisations; intellectual freedom.
Background
Bob Usherwood was appointed to the Department in October 1976 as a public library specialist. The public library service was a major focus of his research and teaching but his interests also included, management especially human resource management; professional ethics; intellectual freedom; the political and policy dimension of libraries and information services; books and reading, and the social and political aspects of information technology.
He was and is a strong advocate of qualitative research methods and used these to demonstrate the value and impact of library and information services. He was Head of the Department´s Library and Information Management Research Group and the founding Director of the Centre for the Public Library and Information in Society. He is the author of over 200 publications. These include major books that have been translated into Korean, Russian, and Portuguese.
Throughout his career he set out to demonstrate the relevance of theory to practice and, in addition to undertaking teaching and research, he was active in the work of professional organizations. In the late sixties and early seventies, he was a controversial editor of The Assistant Librarian. Later he was responsible for developing The Library Association's Code of Conduct. He was Chair of, and served on, numerous Library Association Committees and elected as President of the Association in 1998. He also played a substantial part in national and international affairs. In 1976, he was asked by the then Minister for the Arts to serve on the Library Advisory Council for England. He was one of two British librarians invited to participate in the 1991 White House Conference on Libraries and for many years he contributed to a number of IFLA Committees. He was made an Honorary Fellow of the Library Association in 1992 and received the same honour from the Institute of Information Scientists the following year.
On his retirement in 2005, he took up a long-standing invitation to become a Fellow of the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce). He has also continued to take an interest in academic and professional affairs. He has served on the CILIP Ethics Committee and a number of editorial boards including that for JOLIS. Locally, he is a former Chair of SINTO. He continues to advise on research projects, and to contribute to professional publications.
He has recently completed a new book, Equity and Excellence in the Public Library: Why Ignorance is Not our Heritage. In this, he discusses how library professionals can meet the demands of policy makers to open up the public library system without destroying its values, and advocates a service that is sensitive to difference and seeks to provide access to the best. In addition, he undertakes work for the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education.
Immediately prior to joining the University, he was Senior Assistant Director (Libraries) with the Directorate of Amenity Services, London Borough of Lambeth. This post was equivalent to that of Chief Librarian. He had held previous posts with Devon County Libraries, The London Boroughs of Havering and Sutton, and the Polytechnic of North London.