Inside SLIS
Remembering Margaret Rufsvold
The name Margaret Rufsvold is familiar to hundreds of library science alumni who graduated during her 34 years of leadership of what is now SLIS. Rufsvold died in Bloomington last April.
Rufsvold came to IU in 1938 as director and instructor of a new library curriculum intended primarily to train teachers for school libraries in Indiana. Under her direction, library science evolved into an independent school offering master's and doctoral degrees. The program was renamed the Division of Library Science in 1947 (under the School of Education) and the Graduate Library School in 1966, the same year it began offering the Master of Library Science degree. It earned its present name in 1980.
Rufsvold was known internationally for her work in the development of libraries and library education. In 1956 she received the Beta Phi Mu Award for Distinguished Service to Library Education, the highest honor given by the ALA to a library educator. She held senior positions in state and national library associations and served as a member of the Commission on National Planning for Library Education, as a library consultant to the Ministry of Education in Thailand, and as a U.S. delegate to the International Federation of Library Associations.
Heralded as a master teacher, Rufsvold impressed students with her knowledge and with her skills as a communicator.
One alumnus said in 1972, when Rufsvold retired as dean and professor emerita of library science, "Professor Rufsvold's great strength as a teacher lay in the fact that she personally contributed to the movements that have shaped the course of library education in the United States. Her own work in developing accreditation standards for undergraduate and graduate library science curricula gave her a unique vantage point from which to view library education, both past and present."
In 1979 Rufsvold established the Margaret I. Rufsvold Graduate Fellowship Fund. The fellowship is given annually to a SLIS student whose record shows evidence of superior potential for success as a library/information professional.
Posted December 11, 2001