Dr. Rebecca Knuth’s Retirement Celebration

On April 27, the Library and Information Science Program’s (LIS) Alumni Group hosted a retirement reception for Dr. Rebecca Knuth. A beloved member of the LIS program, she is bringing to a close a wonderful 19 years of service helping to send newly minted librarians out into the exciting and challenging world of physical and digital libraries, information management, and archives. She herself is a 1989 Master’s in Science graduate of the LIS program and went on to earn her PhD in Library and Information Science from Indiana University. In 2001 she received the UH Presidential Citation for Meritorious Teaching; in 2004 she was the recipient of the Sarah K. Vann Professional Service Award; and in 2008 she received the Library Journal LIS Educator of the Year award. Among her many conference publications, articles, and book chapters, she has authored three books: Libricide: The Regime-Sponsored Destruction of Books and Libraries in the Twentieth Century (2003), Burning Books and Leveling Libraries: Extremist Violence and Cultural Destruction (2006), and Children’s Literature and British Identity: Imagining a People and a Nation (2012). She is working on her fourth book and hopes to return to teach at the LIS program in the near future. She also served as chair of the Communication and Information Sciences doctoral program and as chair of the LIS program. During her tenure as chair of the LIS program, in the aftermath of the October 2004 flood that devastated Hamilton Library, she performed the heroic task of rallying faculty and students into salvaging and cleaning up the destroyed program space. She continued to work tirelessly with the repair and renovation and personally oversaw the interior design and refurnishing of the program space, resulting in a beautiful and inspiring place for students and faculty.

Her reception was a heartfelt and memorable event, with moving testimonials from students, colleagues, the chair of the LIS program, the chair of the CIS program, the chair of the ICS department, and the Alumni Group. Those who spoke praised her for her untiring dedication to her students, her admirable career in scholarship, and her ability to raise the bar for service, collaboration, and collegiality among the faculty with whom she worked.

Visit her website for more information.

University of Hawai‘i Alumni