Robert S. Taylor

Robert Saxton Taylor (June 15, 1918 – January 1, 2009) was an influential library scholar and information scientist who served as Dean of the Syracuse University School of Information Studies from 1972 to 1981. His research and publications focused attention on users of information systems and information services.

Biography Born in Ithaca, New York, Taylor received a bachelor's degree in history from Cornell University before being drafted into the U.S. Army in 1942. Serving in Germany, he became a member of the Army's Counter Intelligence Corps. As a counter-intelligence officer seeking informants against French and Soviet Communists and former Nazis, he recruited former Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie, the "Butcher of Lyon", later saying that he had not been aware of Barbie's activities during the war at the time that he recruited him.

Taylor recognized Barbie's name, as Barbie had been the only S.S. officer who had escaped arrest in a recent roundup of individuals wanted for questioning.

Taylor returned to the United States in 1947, later earning a master's degree in library science from Columbia University (1950). His papers have been deposited in the Special Collections Division of the Syracuse University Library.

Contributions and recognition In 1963, Taylor argued behavioral sciences provide fundamental approach to information science, as well as logic and mathematics, linguistics, and systems analysis. Taylor suggested breaking these approaches to information science into information sciences and information technology engineering. Information technology engineering would apply to any discussion of the development, design, or operation of information systems, indexing and abstracting services, information services, etc.

Taylor served on the Executive Council of the American Society for Information Science (now ASIST) from 1959–61, and was elected President in 1968. In 1972, Taylor received the ASIS award for the Best Information Science Book, and in 1992 received the organization's Award of Merit .

At Syracuse, Taylor founded the nation's first master's degree in information management in 1980. In 1986 Taylor published Value-Added Processes in Information Systems (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing), where he presents his important user criteria and value-added framework, outlining six categories of value-added services in library and information systems: ease of use; noise reduction; quality; adaptability; time savings; cost savings.

An assessment of Taylor's contributions to the evolution of memory's politics is explored by Nathan Johnson in Architects of Memory.

Other publications “Question-Negotiation and Information Seeking in Libraries,” College & Research Libraries (May 1968) “Value-Added Processes in the Information Life Cycle,” Journal of the American Society for Information Science (September 1982)