Donald T. Hawkins

I have been working in various roles in the online information industry for over 40 years, and for Information Today, Inc. (ITI) for the past 15 of those years. I began my ITI career when it purchased Information Science & Technology Abstracts (ISTA, formerly Information Science Abstracts), and I became Editor-in-Chief. That was the first time I had been involved with the production aspect of the information industry (before that I was a user), and it was a tremendous learning experience. I also functioned for a time as Editor-in-Chief of Fulltext Sources Online (FSO). After ISTA was sold to EBSCO Publishing, I began writing the Conference Circuit column for IT. Part of that function involved tracking upcoming conferences and maintaining the Conference Calendar page on the Information Today website, which I still continue.

Before my affiliation with ITI, I was an online searcher in the AT&T Bell Laboratories Library Network, and was responsible for introducing, marketing, and growing the Information Retrieval Service there. I joined Bell Labs after obtaining my Ph.D. Degree in Metallurgy from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1971.

I was also affiliated with ASIDIC (the Association of Information and Dissemination Centers) as its Newsletter Editor and Executive Secretary for 10 years. (ASIDIC merged with NFAIS several years ago; an ASIDIC archive is available on the NFAIS website.)