Shifra Baruchson-Arbib (Hebrew: שפרה ברושסון ארביב; born 1951) is a Full Professor in the Department of Information Science at Bar-Ilan University Israel, specializing in the history and sociology of media. She was the Head of the Information Science Department (1990-1998, 2005-2008, 2012–2014) and has served as the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Bar- Ilan University (2015-2016). Her major achievements include her studies in the fields of the "History of Hebrew Books and Manuscripts" and of "Information Science", leading the Department of Information Science; and developing the academic field of Social Information Science.
Biography Shifra Baruchson-Arbib was born in December 1951 in Tel-Aviv, as Zipora Baruchson, to a learned rabbinical family. She is married to Chaim Eric Arbib. Her paternal grandfather, Rabbi Yitzhak Baruchson, was a descendant of 17 generations of Dayanim (judges of Jewish Law) and a leader in the Musar (Ethical) movement. Her maternal grandfather, Rabbi Avraham Sochovolski, was one of the first Scribes (Sofer Stam) in Tel-Aviv in the 1930s. Her father, Shlomo Baruchson, was the owner of the "Shalom publishing house" and was the first person in Israel to turn the Bible, the Siddur (prayer book), and the Haggadah (the prayer book of Passover) into gifts by using luxurious silver book covers using the work of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Israel. Baruchson-Arbib's uncle, Yehuda Makavy, was the owner of the "International Company of Publishing" house and he initiated and published the first historical-archeological project in Israel. This project was published in a series of books called "The view of the Biblical World", edited by the know archeologists Michael Avi-Yonah and Avraham Malamat, and "The Military Art in the Lands of the Bible", by Yigael Yadin. Baruchson-Arbib's family background greatly influenced her scientific and research work.
Baruchson-Arbib began her studies at Bar-Ilan University in 1970, in the Departments of Bible Studies, Jewish History, and Library Science. She completed her master's and doctorate degrees in the field of Jewish History in topics related to manuscripts, rare books, and the reading culture. In 1974, she began to work at Bar-Ilan University as a research assistant]. In 1990, Baruchson-Arbib was appointed Head of the Department of Bibliographical and Librarianship Studies at Bar-Ilan University. As only a few students were interested in the field at the time, she changed the name of the department and its content to The Department of Information Science. This interdisciplinary field is known throughout the world and regards the theory and practice of producing, collecting, processing, storing, retrieving, representing, and distributing information. The field aims to understand the process that information undergoes as it transforms from data to knowledge, and it trains information scientists, information managers, and librarians. Changing the name of the department and its curriculum increased the number of students in the department from 50 to 500 in two years, and it allowed its graduates to work in an innovative and modern field. Today, graduates of the department are employed in various fields, including in high-tech companies, industry, hospitals, libraries, and the private sector. To date, the Department of Information Science at Bar-Ilan University is the largest and most significant in the field in Israel, and it awards bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degrees. Baruchson-Arbib has served as the Head of the department for many years and has supervised more than 70 research students. She has also developed a new discipline in the field of Information Science – the "Social Information Science" discipline. which teaches to balance between information overload and the need for reliable and available information, especially in the fields of health and welfare. In 1993, Baruchson-Arbib received the Zalman Shazar Award for Outstanding Research in Jewish History, due to her book "Books and Readers: The Reading Culture of Italian Jews at the Close of the Renaissance", which was published in that year. This book was based on her doctorate work and received the Award due to its innovative methodology and findings. In addition to her research activities, Baruchson-Arbib studied the Milton Erickson hypnosis technique in the United States, and she was accredited to practice hypnosis in the State of New York. Baruchson-Arbib has participated in numerous international conferences and has lectured at various universities, such as the Sorbonne in Paris and the University of British Columbia. She is currently a member of several organizations, including the International Center for Information Ethics (ICIE) and the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce (RSA). In addition, she is a member of several journal boards, including the Israeli journal 'Alei Sefer: Studies in Bibliography and in the History of the Printed and the Digital Hebrew Book', the British 'Journal of Communication & Ethics in Society', and the Polish journal 'Przeglad Biblioteczny Library Review'. She is also a member of the board of directors of the 'Joshua and Bracha Barzilai Scholarship Fund for Jewish Bibliographic Research', a member of the board of directors of the 'Naima and Yehoshua Salti Center for Ladino Studies', and a member of the high-school professional committee for 'Digital Discovery and Finding' in the Ministry of Education. In addition to being the dean of Humanities at Bar-Ilan University, Baruchson-Arbib also teaches in the Department of Information Science, where she gives various courses and seminars on information ethics, the "digital man" in the information society, social information, and reference work. In 2013, she established the "Information 21" project, within which the annual conference "Information, Society, and Industry" is held.
Research Until the 1990s, the research of Baruchson-Arbib consisted mainly of the study of Hebrew books, manuscripts, rare books, the reading culture, and the Interdisciplinary methodology of book research – also known as "the new bibliology". Since establishing the Department of Information Science, Baruchson-Arbib has published research in the fields of social information, public libraries, information behavior, library management, and information skills.
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