F. W. “Wilf” Lancaster

[Aldo]

F. W. “Wilf” Lancaster, professor emeritus at the Graduate School of 

Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois, passed 

away on Sunday, August 25, at his home in Urbana, Illinois. He was 79 

years old. He is survived by his wife of 52 years, Cesaria; and his 

children, Miriam, Owen, Jude, Aaron, Lakshmi, and Raji; and his 13 

grandchildren.

A visitation will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, August 30, at St. 

Patrick’s Catholic Church in Urbana with a funeral Mass to follow at 

11:00 a.m. Interment will occur immediately thereafter at Clements 

Cemetery on High Cross Road in Urbana. A funeral lunch will follow at 

St. Patrick’s. In lieu of flowers, please make contributions to Save the 

Children or the World Wildlife Fund.

Lancaster graduated as an associate of the British Library Association 

from the University of Northumbria at Newcastle, England, in 1955. After 

gaining experience as a senior assistant at the Newcastle-upon-Tyne 

Public Libraries, Lancaster immigrated to the United States in 1959. He 

became known for his revolutionary work in the evaluation and management 

of MEDLARS, the National Library of Medicine’s computerized 

bibliographic retrieval system for articles in academic journals in 

medicine and allied health professions. Though one of the earliest 

evaluations of a computer-based retrieval system, it continues to have a 

lasting impact on information systems today.

Lancaster joined GSLIS in 1970 as an associate professor and director of 

the biomedical librarianship program (1970-73); in 1972, he became a 

full professor; and in 1992, following his retirement, he was honored 

with the title of professor emeritus. During his distinguished career, 

he taught courses in information retrieval, bibliometrics, bibliographic 

organization, and the evaluation of library and information services. He 

served as the editor of /Library Trends/, a quarterly journal examining 

critical trends in professional librarianship, from 1986 to 2006. For 

the period from 1989 to 1992, he was named University Scholar, a 

prestigious program recognizing the University’s most talented teachers, 

scholars, and researchers.

Nationally and internationally, Lancaster was recognized as a leader in 

the field of library and information science through his work as a 

teacher, writer, and scholar. He was honored three times with Fulbright 

fellowships for research and teaching abroad, named a fellow of the 

Library Association of Great Britain, and recognized by the Association 

for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) with both the Award of 

Merit and the Outstanding Information Science Teacher award. He was the 

author of 15 books, several of which have received national awards and 

been translated into languages such as Arabic, Russian, Chinese, 

Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and Portuguese. Lancaster also engaged in a 

wide range of consulting activities for organizations around the world, 

including UNESCO and the United Nations.

In 2008, /Library Trends/ published the Festschrift, “Essays Honoring 

the Legacy of F. W. Lancaster 

<https://ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/9483>” (Volume 56, Issue 4), 

edited by Lorraine J. Haricombe and Keith Russell, both of whom studied 

under Lancaster. It includes contributions from his friends, family, 

students, colleagues, and scholars, celebrating his achievements and 

paying homage to his life’s work.

“I met Professor Lancaster when I was a new library school student, and 

he was a new library school faculty member. He was such a natural that I 

thought he had been researching, writing, and teaching for many years. 

But most noteworthy was the interest he took in his students, their 

ideas, their development, and their careers. He became a lifelong friend 

for so many of us,” said Russell (MS ’72), life sciences librarian at 

the University of Kansas.

The /Library Trends/ issue includes articles that highlight Lancaster's 

legacy in the area of underlying structure for online retrieval systems; 

his significant work in subject analysis, thesaurus construction, and 

system evaluation; his impact on measurement and evaluation in 

libraries; his accurate prediction of a “paperless society”; and his 

specialization in bibliometrics. It concludes with an interview by Leigh 

Estabrook, GSLIS dean emerita, who worked with Lancaster during a 

significant part of his career.

“Wilf was a wonderful scholar, teacher, and colleague. His influence on 

our field is both deep and wide and continues to be regenerated by his 

many former students. I will miss his intelligence, his provocative 

questions and his wit. He was a model of a whole human being in his love 

for his work and his love for his family," said Estabrook.

A detailed obituary 

<http://www.renner-wikoffchapel.com/fh/obituaries/obituary.cfm?o_id=2204062&fh_id=10562> is 

available online.

-- 

Kim Schmidt

Director of Publications and Media Relations

Graduate School of Library and Information Science

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

501 East Daniel Street

Champaign, IL 61820

(217) 265-6391

www.lis.illinois.edu