5 Fellows and Honorary Fellows

The grade of Fellow existed from the start of IIS and all the first members of Council were appointed Fellows.

The award of Honorary Fellowships to celebrate those achieving distinction in information work came later. In 1975 Council agreed that Honorary Fellowship should be offered to several eminent figures in the information world.  The first awards were made in 1976.

Both Fellows and Honorary Fellows were corporate members of the Institute and thus had full voting rights at AGMs etc.

Fellowship

Fellowship of the Institute was granted at Council’s discretion to a Member who had worked for at least ten years in an information role, and had either attained distinction by virtue of work in a senior position, or by virtue of original work in the information field, or had otherwise rendered distinguished service to the Institute.

The granting of Fellowships was carefully controlled to ensure quality was maintained.  Fellowship required nomination. Initially this was the responsibility of Membership Committee but from 1987 selection was made by the Professional Standards Committee. From 1996/97 this evolved into Professional Standards and Development Committee.

In 1985 new guidelines for Fellowship were agreed. Byelaw 5 and Article 7 stated that “Council will review the IIS membership list annually with a view to elevate those suitable to fellowship”. A member might be considered following a proposal accompanied by two supporting members at least one of whom was a Fellow. No-one could propose themselves. Proposals would be requested at a Council meeting. These were then evaluated by Membership Committee for consideration at the next Council meeting. Final election/selection was then made at a third meeting. Whilst this process would take six months it was thought worthwhile, given the importance of honouring the right members.

From 1987 requests for nominations were published in Inform. In that year, the award of Fellowship for distinguished service to IIS provoked a discussion in Council. There was a concern that the award of Fellowship for services to the Institute would put it out-of-line with other professional organisations. The prevailing view (12 votes to 9) was that there was nothing to be ashamed of in having these two criteria and the status quo should be preserved. However, there was unanimous support for opening up the process and a call for nominations for elevating distinguished members to Fellows would be made in Inform at the beginning of each year^[1].

At the 1987 AGM, members asked that other means than Fellowship be sought for recognising service to the IIS to ensure that Fellowship was awarded only for service to information science. In 1988 Professional Standards and Development Committee were actioned by Council to examine the best way to recognise distinguished service by members. It was concluded that devising a meaningful award which would be valued by members and which would be distinct from Fellowship would be too difficult. The issue was dropped by Council in 1988.

Honorary Fellowship

The granting of Honorary Fellowships was introduced in 1976 and enshrined in the IIS Articles of Association from inception. These celebrated both the achievements of IIS members and other trailblazers in information science and were presented at the AGM.

In 1983 the recommendations of the Fellowship review confirmed that Council would consider the awarding of Honorary Fellowships annually according to Byelaw 5 and Article 7. Any person of distinction in information work may become an Honorary Fellow but no self-nomination was permitted. These recommendations were formally approved in 1985.

IIS members were asked for nominations; these were scrutinised by Membership Committee (later Professional Standards Committee) who presented recommendations to Council. The awards were then presented at the AGM.

Recipients received a certificate at the AGM and from then they no longer needed to pay a membership subscription.

Normally only one or two Honorary Fellowships were awarded annually – and in some years none. The award process was stringent; Inform announced calls for nominations; the Professional Standards Committee scrutinised these; recommendations then went forward for Council to consider. Potential candidates could include persons of distinguished service to information science, ex-Presidents, and retired distinguished Fellows.

Honorary Fellowships could not be awarded to serving members of Council. An exception to this process was made as the IIS was wound up when the three immediate Past Presidents were asked to consider which Fellows on Council should be elevated to Honorary Fellowship.

Honorary Fellows could use the post nominals:  HonFIInfSci.

The first Honorary Fellowships were awarded in 1976 to five stalwarts of the Institute’s early years including Dr D.J. Campbell for services to the Institute and for establishing and editing the IIS Monograph series. Those presented at the last AGM in 2001 were: Adrian Dale, a consultant in information and knowledge management and editor of JIS, Prof Subbiah Arunchalam, a Distinguished Fellow in the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation; Brian Clifford, Head of Learning and Research Support at Leeds University; and Doug Veal – a specialist in document and information management and IIS champion. The ‘winding up’ Honorary Fellows in 2002 were: Christine Baker, Administrator of UKOLUG; Peter Enser, Past President; Sandra Ward, Past President and Keith Webster, Honorary Secretary, all for services to the IIS.

List of Honorary Fellows