Robert Hayes, a former mathematician whose work had a major impact on information policy and the economics of research library operations, died Feb. 12. He was 95.
Hayes, an emeritus professor who served as dean of the UCLA Graduate School of Library and Information Science (now the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies) from 1974 to 1989, began his academic career as a mathematician. He became an internationally renowned researcher of the philosophical foundations of information science and the role of libraries in national information economies.
His legacy includes contributions to advances in library and information science. Hayes was instrumental in the development of digital data storage and retrieval, information transfer, and systems analysis and design research, and their impacts on libraries, information technology, biomedicine, mathematics and international cooperation in knowledge production.
“Bob’s career began as the field of information science came into its own and spanned its development as well as the globe,” said Anne Gilliland, professor of information studies. “He was also the most gracious, generous colleague who truly appreciated their engagement in areas of the information fields that were different from his own.”
Hayes was born on Dec. 3, 1926, in New York City. During his childhood, his family moved frequently because of his stepfather’s acting career and as a result, he attended more than a dozen high schools before receiving his diploma. He was drafted into the Navy during World War II and was accepted into the V-12 Navy College Training Program, during which he took courses at the University of Colorado Boulder. After the war, Hayes completed his bachelor’s degree in mathematics at UCLA in 1946, his master’s in mathematics in 1949, and his doctorate in 1952.
Read the full obituary on Robert Hayes.
