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A leader in both the academic and professional worlds of public librarianship, and a driving force behind Sheffield's research profile in the field.

It is with great sadness that the University of Sheffield School of Information, Journalism and Communication announces the death of Emeritus Professor Robert (Bob) Usherwood.  

Bob’s career in librarianship began when he started working in public libraries in Devon, before moving to the South East to work in the London boroughs of Havering and of Sutton and then of Lambeth, where he was one of the country’s youngest chief librarians.  He also taught for a while at the Polytechnic of North London School of Librarianship before being appointed in 1976 to a lectureship at what was then the university’s Postgraduate School of Librarianship and Information Science, 

Bob’s lectureship was to support the School’s teaching of public librarianship on its MA Librarianship programme.  His research interests covered a broad range of topics including intellectual freedom, the political and policy dimensions of library and information services, and professional ethics, with a particular interest in the application to librarianship of techniques such as marketing, stress-level measurement, impact assessment, interpersonal skills training and quality management.  External project funding for work in these areas came from a range of agencies, such as the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the British Library and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council.  His leadership led to Sheffield becoming the country’s leading centre for research in librarianship with several of his many doctoral students and RAs going onto academic careers, both in the UK and elsewhere.  

An important feature of Bob’s research was what he referred to as GRIPP (for Getting Research Into Policy and Practice), the need to ensure that it would be of practical value to the public library community.  To this end, he developed and maintained a very high professional profile, in particular in his work throughout his career for the Library Association (now the Charted Institute of Library and Information Professionals), the UK’s professional body for workers in the area.  He was awarded an honorary Fellowship of the Association in 1992 and became its President in 1998, a notable recognition of his work since he was the first academic, rather than a professional, to be elected to this role.   

Bob retired as Emeritus Professor in 2005, and passed away on 23 July 2026 at the age of 82.  He is survived by his second wife Margaret, and his daughters Julie and Tania.