Paul Zurkowski: 11 August 1932 - 30 January 2022

Paul Zurkowski, the man most often cited as (in 1974) originating the term "information literates" and thus "information literacy" has died aged 89 after contracting pneumonia. The 1974 report itself is available as a scan on ERIC at https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED100391 

Zurkowski continued to be engaged with information literacy to the end - his friend & colleague Jeffrey Kelly (who announced his death) reported that he will be working on the "nonprofit educational association, the Universal Information Literacies Association (UiLA), started by Paul and I here in the Washington, DC area". This is the blog post I did of his 2013 talk at ECIL (an the photo is one I took then) and this is a transcript of the talk Zurkowski gave at the LILAC conference in 2014.

Although latterly the thing he is most famous for is his connection with information literacy, I would say that it is his leadership in the dawn of the information industry that is perhaps more significant. This was a heady and risky time, when public data networks didn't exist and even in the early 80s (when I was marketing the then groundbreaking online services at the British Library) you were literally dialling a number on the ordinary (analog) telephone network to connect up with a database that you then accessed VERY SLOWLY. 

Because, in fact, NOT everything is on the internet, the online documentation for the early years of the information industry isn't great. In trawling for information about the Information Industry Association (founded 1968) I found this catalogue entry which identifies that that there is 5.5 linear feet of information industry material "Collection unprocessed" donated by Zurkowski- a project for an information science enthusiast!