About Me

I was born in the Eastern part of Berlin that used to be known as East Berlin, or, the capital of East Germany (formerly German Democratic Republic) in the year Louis Armstrong's Hello Dolly replaced The Beatles' I Want to Hold Your Hand as the number one record on the Billboard Top 40, James Bond saved the world on screen for the third time in Goldfinger and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize. I grew up in Berlin and spent most of the weekends and school breaks at my grandparents' home in the countryside just outside of Berlin in an area that's now called Niederbarnim located in the state of Brandenburg. My parents, Hilmar and Hannelore Haubitz, and my older brother, Holger, still live in Berlin.

My Dad is a great guy who worked as a city planner for the local government of Berlin. He retired and will hopefully find more time to work on his home page. My Mom worked for many years as a special librarian for a huge enterprise but lost her job during the economic reconstruction of former East Germany after the reunification and is retired now. She is the best cook I know and I miss her cooking a lot.

I attended school and started vocational training as certified Offset Printer in 1980 which was an outgrowth of my love for reading and for books. At the same time I worked towards the Abitur (university entrance examination). I can tell you that this was a very hard time because I had to attend school full time and to work almost full time, too. After graduating in 1983, I worked some months in a print shop before doing mandatory military service in the "National People's Army". Following this rather unpleasant experience I tried to find my way around in civil life again and started working as printer at the German State Library. This was cool because I didn't have to do shift work anymore and I got to learn many new things like bookbinding and desktop publishing.

From 1986 till 1990 I studied Library Science at Humboldt University Berlin. After graduation as Diplom-Bibliothekar (univ.) I was a postgraduate student at the Institute for Library Science. In the Fall of 1993 I came to the United States under the Fulbright Program to pursue graduate studies in Library and Information Science at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI. This was also the time when I fell in love with Internet applications although the Net was quite different then. One of the highlights of my studies at Wayne was a Summer internship at the Congressional Research Service in the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. I graduated from Wayne as Master of Library and Information Science (M.L.I.S.) and came to UT in order to pursue Ph.D. studies.

Since I have been at The University of Texas at Austin I have improved my skills and expertise in many areas of information studies. I have worked as teaching assistant for several professors but mostly for Dr. Ruth A. Palmquist and Dr. Phil Doty. I taught LIS 341 "Introduction to Internet Resources and Services" in the Spring of 1997 before developing LIS 312 "Information in Cyberspace" that I thaught during the Fall and Spring semesters until 2002. From August 2003 to May 2004 I was instructor in the Information Architecture and Knowledge Management program at Kent State University. In addition, I accepted several calls to give guest lectures in Germany in 1998, 1999, and 2000. At present, I am working on my dissertation that investigates information seeking needs and behavior of undergraduate students on public portal sites on the WWW.

In my spare time I enjoy traveling, cycling, and listening to all kinds of music. Some of my favorite bands & musicians include The Velvet Underground, Rammstein, Iggy Pop, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Roky Erickson and the late Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. Maybe it is because I am German, but I also enjoy a very good beer and started to brew my own some years ago. This must be a result of a certain kind of shortage of good beer in the U.S. I am a pretty social person and have enjoyed living in the Deutsches Haus co-op located in the West-campus area for several years. Now, I have my own space nearby.

You are welcome to contact me anytime! See you in Austin, Germany or just in Cyberspace!