Dr. S. K. Hastings joined the faculty at the University of South Carolina, School of Library and Information Science as director and professor in August 2006. Previously she directed the digital image management program of study at the University of North Texas, School of Library and Information Sciences and served as interim dean 2004-2005. She holds a MLIS from USF Tampa and a Ph.D. from Florida State.
Sam’s research interests in the retrieval of digital images, cultural heritage, telecommunications and evaluation of networked information services influence how she views the changing roles for information professionals. “Without library and information scientists, there is little hope that people will be able to find the information and knowledge needed to flourish in the digital environment.”
Sam tries to integrate real world experiences as reflected by teamwork and product development in all of her classes that range from indexing and abstracting to telecommunications.
Sam has worked as a consultant and built full-text and image databases for accountants, dentists, doctors, lawyers and county and state governments. Along the way, Sam has worked to help public libraries and museums connect to the Internet and share their cultural objects in a digital environment. She served as president of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (www.asist.org) in 2004 and is currently the editor for the ASIS&T Monograph series, published by Information Today, Inc.
