Sharon Hogan, 57, university librarian at the University of Illinois at Chicago who was a national leader in changing the focus of libraries during the proliferation of information technologies, died Saturday, April 27, in Arizona after a brief illness.
“Sharon Hogan was a pivotal figure in the rebirth of the modern library in the digital age,” said UIC Chancellor Sylvia Manning. “She worked tirelessly to resolve some of the complex technical and ethical issues that confront not just information scientists but all scholars.”
With the growth of the Internet and increased sophistication of library users, Ms. Hogan changed the focus of libraries by teaching patrons how to conduct relatively modest research themselves. That allowed librarians more time to work on intricate research requests.
“Libraries are now more a collector of materials in various formats, and partly because of her innovations in bibliographic instructions we now provide users with skills and online access to meet most of their own needs for information,” said Jay Lambrecht, interim associate university librarian at UIC. “She changed the focus of librarians, allowing them to focus on more serious needs that people can’t take care of themselves.”
A guardian of copyright, free speech and privacy issues, Ms. Hogan was named the Academic/Research Librarian of the Year in 2000 by the Association of College and Research Libraries. Her efforts laid the groundwork for libraries seeking to balance inquiries from government and law-enforcement agencies about patrons’ reading habits with the privacy of library users.
“It’s a matter of protecting confidentiality,” said Kathy Walsh, acting president of the Illinois Association of College and Research Libraries. “Sharon helped to raise awareness of the fact that users’ behaviors in the library are easily traceable if you let it be. People are going to be looking back at Sharon’s work and figuring out how to deal with these things in the future.”
Ms. Hogan also received the Intellectual Freedom Award from the Illinois Library Association for criticizing Internet filters.
Born in Santa Barbara, Calif., Ms. Hogan was raised in Cherokee, Iowa, and graduated in 1967 with a bachelor’s degree in American history from the College of William & Mary. She earned a graduate degree in library science the following year from the University of Michigan.
A faculty member and librarian for 14 years at Michigan, she also taught one of the first bibliographic instruction courses in the U.S. for graduate students. She also worked at Temple University and Louisiana State University before moving in 1990 to UIC, where she also was vice provost for information management.
Ms. Hogan was an avid traveler and visited Peru’s Machu Picchu and Tibet, hiked Mt. Everest in Nepal and climbed to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
She is survived by her mother, Elta Hogan.
A memorial service will be held at 3:30 p.m. May 9 in the Illinois Room of the Chicago Circle Center, 750 S. Halsted St.
