von Dran Award Recipient 2010
Toni Carbo
Toni Carbo 
is currently a teaching professor at the College of Information Science and Technology (the iSchool) Center for Graduate Studies, Drexel University. She was professor at the School of Information Sciences (SIS) and Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh from 1986-May 2009, and she served as dean of SIS at Pitt from 1986 to 2002. She has served as executive director of the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS), the government agency responsible for advising the President and U.S. Congress on policy and planning in the information field. Her work in the information field began in 1962 and includes extensive experience with information service producers and users (both libraries and database producers) and in research in the areas of information policy and information ethics and in the use of information.
Remarks by Toni Carbo in Accepting the Ray von Dran Award
Award presented by Elizabeth Liddy, Dean of the iSchool, Syracuse University,
iConference, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois
5 February 2010
It is a very great honor and pleasure to receive the first Ray von Dran award. When Liz Liddy called me to tell me about the award, I know it is hard for those of you who know me, but I was actually speechless. To be recognized by peers, who should know at least some of my many faults, AND to receive an award named for a dear friend and colleague is really overwhelming.
This month I celebrate 48 years in this exciting field, starting with taking a semester off from my undergraduate studies at Brown both because I learned that, back in those dark ages of women’s rights, I couldn’t be an astronaut so working towards a degree in mathematics and because I was heavily involved in the civil rights movement. I was very fortunate to get a job in the library at Mathematical Reviews at the American Mathematical Society. This opened a whole field to me as I learned about how people seek and use information, how to define and describe a discipline and how to go from a question in someone’s head to a collection. Over the years I was very lucky to be in the right place at the right time, working with engineers to develop profiles to search against early NASA databases, and with indexing and abstracting services as they were creating databases in the U.S. and U.K. and with corporations to develop effective search strategies to retrieve information. This work led to an interest in information policy and later information ethics, and the unique experience of directing a Federal agency focused on policy, just as the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980 was being implemented.
It was in 1986 that, thanks to the advice of my friend and mentor, I applied for and was appointed dean at the University of Pittsburgh, where I had the incredible opportunity to help shape a new interdisciplinary program in telecommunications and to put it together with library and information science and information science and technology: building the 3-legged stool of infrastructure, systems and software, and content and the long tradition of service, policy and ethics – all with the focus on people. Being a dean for 16 years and a professor for 23 provided so many opportunities to learn and to collaborate.
One of these opportunities was to bring together first two, then 3 and later a bit larger group of deans who shared common interests and objectives. The original “gang of 3� – the deans of Syracuse (Don Marchand), Drexel (Dick Lytle), and Pittsburgh came together over coffee at an ALISE meeting as we talked about the challenges we faced in our complex schools, each of which had library and information science (with archives and records management), information science/systems and something else (such as: telecommunications, journalism or software engineering. Among the challenges we identified were: 1) explaining to our provosts what the information field is all about; 2) managing both undergraduate and graduate programs; 3) having too few researchers in any single area and needing to build larger collaborative research teams; and 4) getting information to help identify starting salary ranges and other comparable data to help in recruiting and keeping top quality faculty and staff. We added Dick Budd from Rutgers and this very informal group met twice a year, rotating among our institutions. Thanks to John King’s invitation, some of us participated in the Computing Research Association’s meetings and Peter Freeman asked me to chair the agenda committee to shape the agendas for two of the meeting, giving us an opportunity to broaden the group’s perspective beyond CS to the information field more widely. Others soon joined, including several people at this conference, and we became a group that met into the mid 1990s, eventually growing to 10. The idea was to collaborate – but not compete – with existing organizations, such as ALISE, ASIST, and CRA. We also wanted to ensure that we were inclusive, not inclusive, both in areas and types of research and in participation. The idea was to make the tent bigger, with overlapping subgroups as needed. There was a brief period of inactivity in the late 1990s and in 2001, I reconstituted the group at a meeting in Pittsburgh, in part because of the many new players involved and because of the huge changes in our field at the end of the century. In 2002 when I stepped down as dean, the group took on a new life under new leadership and grew significantly into the iSchools. The changes over the years have been very substantial, with the iSchools iCaucus, the iConferences, and many other activities. Just look around this room! It is truly amazing to see what one small idea and a little informal group have evolved into over the years thanks to the leadership and incredibly hard work of many people and institutions. As an Italian mother, I have to say it is a bit like watching one’s child grow up and become a fine adult, maintaining some of the core values and ideas while taking on a new and different persona. I want to thank all of you who continue to build on one small idea to make this a vigorous and productive organization that contributes significantly to knowledge of our discipline and practice, understanding of our field, and the education and mentoring of future scholars and leaders.
Many of you know me, and you know that I always want to try to make a really good thing even better, so I can’t resist a few comments and personal thoughts. One, of course, is to keep up the great work; the conferences have continued to provide excellent opportunities for individuals from many backgrounds and cultures to get together to share ideas and to network informally. I do sincerely hope that the iSchools group will continue to work to be inclusive (not exclusive), to recognize, respect and include both quantitative and qualitative research, and to collaborate and not compete with our existing sister organizations, or with their programs or their conferences. Our field and profession are splintered more than they should be and I think we should find ways to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort and to work together to strengthen our field across organizations, disciplines and cultures. Also, while technologies are a critical part of what we do, they are only one part. We are not T-schools, we are iSchools, and sometimes perhaps we need to remind ourselves of that. The “i� is not just for information. It is for individuals – always the reason we do what we do. It is also for ideas, inspiration, and innovations. It is about people and we can harness appropriate technologies to ensure that they get the information and knowledge needed to answer their questions, inspire them, and improve the quality of their lives. Continuing to stress the focus on people and content, along with the technologies, and to ask not just the “what� and “how� but also the “why� questions will help us truly shape the future of the information field.
I want to thank you again for this award. I keep thinking of my last conversation with Ray at some conference over a glass of wine. He told me all about his planned around-the-world trip and asked about “life after deaning.� We decided to form an informal group of former deans – perhaps even a SIG – to share any advice and ideas we had with new deans. That would have been fun and another great opportunity to work with Ray. What is so truly tragic is that Ray really did not get to enjoy his life after deaning. I would gladly trade this award and much more to have Ray here with us this evening. Fortunately, his wise counsel over the years and his wonderful spirit stay with us and we can all strive to honor him through our work.
Thank you.