“Bad libraries only build collections. Good libraries build services (and a collection is only one of many). Great libraries build communities.” - R. David Lankes, Expect More: Demanding Better Libraries for Today’s Complex World
R. David Lankes, Virginia and Charles Bowden Professor of Librarianship at the University of Texas at Austin, will appear for a public lecture at the Jesup Memorial Library on Tuesday, August 12th at 5:30pm.
Dr. Lankes is the author of The Atlas of New Librarianship, which recasts librarianship through a focus on communities and knowledge over collections and buildings. He envisions library practices in which “librarians approach their work as facilitators of conversation, they seek to enrich, capture, store, and disseminate the conversations of their communities.” He has authored, co-authored, or edited over twenty books, including Expect More: Demanding Better Libraries for Today’s Complex World.
Lankes has always been interested in combining theory and practice to create active research projects that make a difference. His work has been funded by organizations such as The MacArthur Foundation, The Institute for Library and Museum Services, NASA, The U.S. Department of Education, The U.S. Department of Defense, The National Science Foundation, The U.S. State Department, and The American Library Association.
Lankes is a passionate advocate for libraries and their essential role in today's society earning him the American Library Association's Isadore Gilbert Mudge Award for distinguished contribution to reference librarianship in 2021 and the Ken Haycock Award for Promoting Librarianship in 2016. He also seeks to understand how information approaches and technologies can be used to transform industries. In this capacity he has served on advisory boards and study teams in the fields of libraries, telecommunications, education, and transportation including at the National Academies. He has been a visiting fellow at the National Library of Canada, The Harvard School of Education, the French national library school Enssib, and was the first fellow of ALA's Office for Information Technology Policy. His book,The Atlas of New Librarianship won the 2012 ABC-CLIO/Greenwood Award for the Best Book in Library Literature. Read more at https://davidlankes.org/