Dr. Bill Robinson Fellowship

The Dr. Bill Robinson Fellowship is not yet endowed.

About Dr. Bill Robinson

Dr. Robinson was recruited to the University of Tennessee in 1972 by founding director of the Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences Gary Purcell. He served as acting director of the School of Information Sciences on two occasions and served as assistant director from 2005 until his retirement in 2008.

Over his 35 year tenure at SIS, Dr. Robinson taught hundreds of students and some 10 courses, including required courses in Research Methods and the Development and Management of Collections. He authored some 45 articles with an emphasis on Tennessee librarianship, book publishing, and government publications.

His subject specialties lay in social sciences and reference services, although, over the years, Dr. Robinson taught a broad variety of courses. Dr. Purcell asked him to be the school’s “book person,” and so he developed and taught classes in the history of the book, book publishing, collection development—and later, academic libraries, government information, and reader’s guidance.

Dr. Robinson was awarded the Tennessee Library Association’s Frances Neel Cheney Award for “contributions to the world of librarianship and books through the encouragement of the love of books and reading” in 1999. He received UT Libraries’ Outstanding Service Award in 2001, and the College of Communication and Information Outstanding Teaching Award in 2005–2006.

Dr. Robinson was awarded a Ph.D. at the University of Illinois in 1973. His dissertation was on “Subject Dispersion in Political Science: An analysis of references appearing in the journal literature, 1910-1960” for which he was awarded the Berner-Nash Award for the outstanding doctoral thesis of the year.