Leigh Estabrook is Dean and Professor in the Graduate School of Library and
Information Science and Professor of Sociology at the University of
Illinois. She also directs the Library Research Center for which she is
currently principle investigator for two projects: (1) chemistry
professors' views on alternative publication strategies, funded by SPARC
(ARL) and the American Chemical Society; and (2) Adult Literacy Services in
Public Libraries for the Lila Wallace Readers Digest Fund.
She was the initial architect of LEEP3, an internet based option of the M.S. degree offered by her school with full involvement of all faculty. LEEP3 currently enrolls 120 students from such geographically diverse areas as Thailand, Japan, Alaska, France and Argentina.
Her current interest in the impact of distance education on higher education is an outgrowth of fourteen years of academic administration and her earlier reflections on the impact of online information services on public libraries. (See, for example, "Productivity, Profit and Libraries," Library Journal (July 1981) pp. 1377-1380.) Estabrook holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Boston University (1980); M.S. from Simmons College (1969) and A.B. from Northwestern University (1964).