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California Library Hall of Fame

Robert Hayes (1926-2022)

Starting his career as a mathematician during World War II, Robert Hayes worked as an information scientist at the National Bureau of Standards in the early 1950s. From 1955 to 1959, he worked at the Magnavox Research Labs, where he was involved in advancing information storage and retrieval through the Minicard and Magnacard systems.

At the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, he led the training program in library automation for the American Library Association’s (ALA) professional staff in an exhibit called “Library 21,” aimed at introducing online retrieval to the general public.

A mathematics lecturer at UCLA since 1952, Hayes was instrumental in helping create what would eventually become the UCLA Graduate School of Library and Information Science, where he was appointed dean in 1974. During his 14-year tenure as dean, he recruited an almost entirely new faculty, developed international programs, and established the school’s top-tier ranking in the field. He retired in 1991, but returned periodically to teach information studies courses.

With his work partner Joseph Becker, Hayes wrote the seminal books INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL: TOOLS, ELEMENTS, THEORIES (1963), which literally defined the field, and HANDBOOK OF DATA PROCESSING FOR LIBRARIES (1970).

He also served as president of both the American Documentation Institute (later the Association for Information Science) in 1962-63 and ALA’s Information Science and Automation Division (later called the Library and Information Technology Association, or LITA). Moreover, he was known and highly respected worldwide, teaching as a visiting professor at several institutions, including Nankai University in China, the University of Library and Information Science in Japan, the University of New South Wales in Australia, Loughborough University in England, and the University of Graz in Austria.

Robert M. Hayes is considered a pioneer in the field of information science, who was instrumental in the development of digital data storage and retrieval, information transfer, and systems analysis and design research, and their impact on libraries, information technology, biomedicine, mathematics, and international cooperation in knowledge production.

Robert Hayes was inducted into the California Library Hall of Fame in 2022. For more information, please see:

Joanie Harmon, “Robert M. Hayes: 1926-2022,” UCLA School of Education & Information Studies https://seis.ucla.edu/news/robert-m.-hayes-1926-2022

“Oral History Interview with Robert M. Hayes” (February 26, 2001) https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/6fyymz6

Photo source: https://seis.ucla.edu/news/robert-m.-hayes-1926-2022