Kaser Lecture Series

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Past Kaser Lectures

  • 2025 - Leo S. Lo, Dean of Libraries, Advisor to the Provost for AI Literacy, University Librarian, and Professor of Education at the University of Virginia: "AI Literacy and Libraries: Research, Upskilling, and the Five Tensions of Transformation"

  • 2024- Nicole A. Cooke, Augusta Baker Endowed Chair and a Professor at the School of Library and Information Science, at the University of South Carolina: "The Competent Humility Model: Merging the Powers of Cultural Competence and Cultural Humility"

  • 2023 – Kate Starbird, Associate Professor in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) and Director of the Emerging Capacities of Mass Participation (emCOMP) Laboratory, University of Washington: "Participatory Disinformation during U.S. Elections: Deep Storytelling with an Online Audience."

  • 2021 – Helen Nissenbaum, Professor of Information Science and Founding Director of the Digital Life Initiative at Cornell Tech, New York City: "Contextual Integrity versus Privacy Tradeoff Imperatives."

  • 2019 – Paul Edwards, William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at Stanford University and Professor Emeritus of Information and History at the University of Michigan: “Truth Under Siege: Making Climate Knowledge in an Age of Transparency, Skepticism, and and Science Denial”

  • 2018 – Geoffrey Bowker, Professor of Informatics, University of California, Irvine: “How the West was Won by Data.”

  • 2015 – James L. Mullins, ’84 Ph.D., Dean of Libraries at Purdue University: “How Long the Odyssey”

  • 2012 – Lorcan Dempsey, Vice President and Chief Strategist of the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC): “The Research Library: Scalabe Efficiency and Scalable Learning”

  • 2010 - Jinnie Y. Davis, '81 Ph.D., Coordinating Consultant for The Ohio Board of Regents: "Academic Libraries in the For-Profit Sector"

  • 2009 – John Richardson, Jr., ’78 Ph.D., Professor Emeritus at UCLA: “From Hand Printer to Ecological Informatician: Or, How I Discovered the Lost Ship of the Colorado Desert: - an autobiographical speculation on how the field has changed over my thirty plus year career with advice on focusing on the present, studying the past, and planning for the future..."

  • 2008 – William Crowe, ’86 Ph.D., Librarian Emeritus at the University of Kansas: "The Research Library of the Future: A View from the 1960s Revisited"

  • 2004 - Nicholas Basbanes, Author: "The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World"

About David Kaser

“Dr. David Kaser, a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of IU’s former School of Library and Information Science (now the Department of Information and Library Science) was one of only a handful of librarians to be named a Guggenheim Fellow. Kaser spent nearly 20 years teaching at Indiana University, was a two-time Councilor for the American Library Association, and is the author of 14 books, including his autobiography, “Just Lucky, I Guess: My Adventurous Life as a Hoosier Librarian.”

Born in Mishawaka, Indiana, March 12, 1924, Kaser served in the Army during World War II and saw combat in the European, African, and Middle Eastern campaigns. He also served in the Alaskan theater and spent the final year of his military services as a recruiter. Following the war, he enrolled in Houghton College in New York where he earned a B.A. in English in 1949. One year later, he earned a Master’s in English from Notre Dame, and he added a Master of Arts in Library Science from the University of Michigan in 1952.

Kaser completed his Ph.D. in Library Science from Michigan in 1956, and he became the Chief of Acquisitions at Washington University from 1956-59. He became a professor at George Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee, from 1960-68, and he concurrently served as the Director of Libraries for Vanderbilt University. Kaser became the Director of Libraries for Cornell University from 1968-73, and during this time he also served as a lecturer at Syracuse University. Kaser arrived in Bloomington in 1973 to serve as a professor of Library and Information Science. He held that position until 1986 when he was named a Distinguished Professor of Library and Information Science until his retirement in 1991.

Kaser directed more than 40 Ph.D. dissertations on subjects ranging from the history of mosque libraries in Islamic life and culture to the role of the personnel office in Academic Libraries. He was recognized with a Distinguished Teaching Award from IU in 1981, and he performed more than 350 library consultancies on four continents on general library management and academic library building planning. Kaser also published more than 300 articles.” – taken from “In Memoriam: David Kaser,” formerly published on the Luddy website.

His papers can be found on Archives Online at Indiana University.

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