SC&I Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Library and Information Science Tefko Saracevic, a world-renowned expert on human information behavior, human-computer interaction from the human viewpoint, modeling interaction processes in information retrieval, and the concept of relevance in relation to information and information systems, has died.

Saracevic joined Rutgers in 1985 and has been a full-time member of the SC&I Library and Information Science Department faculty for 25 years. In 1991, he was promoted to Professor II (the highest academic rank at the university). From 2003 to 2006, he served as an associate dean at SC&I. In 2010, he transitioned to emeritus status, but for years afterward, he still taught an online Digital Libraries course.

Saracevic conducted research and published widely on the testing and evaluation of information retrieval systems, the concept of relevance in information science, human aspects in human-computer interaction in information retrieval; user and use studies in information science and librarianship, studies of user-derived value of information and library services; evaluation of digital libraries; and analysis of Web queries as submitted to search engines.

Saracevic received the Gerard Salton Award for Excellence in Research by the Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval, Association for Computing Machinery (SIGIR/ACM) in 1997; the ASIS Award of Merit (highest award given by the Society) in 1995; the 1989 Best Paper Award in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science; and the ASIS Outstanding Information Science Teacher Award in 1985.

As principal investigator or co-principal, he received research grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes for Health, the Department of Education, the Council for Library Resources, the Rockefeller Foundation, UNESCO, and several other national and international organizations. His results were widely reported and cited.

Active internationally, particularly in relation to information problems in developing countries, Saracevic was involved with the Rockefeller Foundation for over a decade in the design, deployment, and evaluation of compact, high-quality, low-cost medical information systems in under-resourced areas around the world.

He was a visiting professor at four universities abroad and worked and consulted with several international organizations on the development and evaluation of information systems and libraries.

Saracevic presented papers at international meetings in 43 countries and was an invited keynote speaker at over a dozen international conferences. He also served as co-founder and co-chair, from 2000 to 2014, of the biennial conference and course Libraries in the Digital Age (LIDA) held in Zadar, Croatia.

Saracevic was active in several professional associations. He was the president of the American Society for Information Science (ASIS, now ASIS&T) in 1991. He received the Gerard Salton Award for Excellence in Research by the Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval, Association for Computing Machinery (SIGIR/ACM) in 1997; the ASIS Award of Merit (highest award given by the Society) in 1995; the 1989 Best Paper Award in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science; the ASIS Outstanding Information Science Teacher Award in 1985; and the Rutgers University Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Research in 1991. In 1994, he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Zagreb, Croatia; he was granted a second Fulbright scholarship in 1999.

Saracevic was awarded the Rutgers University Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Research in 1991. In 1994 he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Zagreb, Croatia; he was granted a second Fulbright scholarship for 1999.

As of 2024, he had received 5,818 citations in the Scopus database (a prominent abstract and citation database of scientific journals, books, and conference proceedings). In Google Scholar (with a broader coverage of all kinds of documents in addition to journals) he received 16,462 citations. In a histogram of citations from papers in the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST & predecessor names), done by the late Eugene Garfield from the Web of Science for years 1956-2006 and involving 4605 authors, he ranked first in citations to his work both in articles in the Journal (Total Local Citation Score) and in articles globally from that Journal (Total Global Citation Score).

Saracevic was also a member of several editorial boards. From 1985 to 2008, he was Editor-in-Chief of Information Processing & Management, an international journal published by Elsevier Science Ltd. He was also a Regular reviewer for several journals and granting agencies.

Saracevic studied electrical engineering at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, from 1952-1957. He completed his master’s degree in 1962 and his Ph.D. in 1970 in studies in information science at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. He taught and conducted research at Case Western until 1985 when he moved to Rutgers.

The LIS Department faculty joins the scholarly community worldwide to remember our cherished colleague, Prof. Tefko Saracevic. We anticipate sharing further remembrances from those who knew him best in the coming days and weeks.

More information about the Library and Information Science Department is on the Rutgers School of Communication and Information website.