Welcome to InfoLink Online!


Welcome to the online supplement to InfoLink. A PDF version of the full newsletter is available for your printing convenience. At any time, please feel free to contact us at infolink@simmons.edu. Enjoy!

Feeling nostalgic? Take a look at the Infolink Online Archives.

October 2007

In this issue of InfoLink, we take a trip to the GSLIS West campus at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass. We also sat down with adjunct professor Linda Braun, who talks about her life as a professor at GSLIS, and her interest in social software.

In InfoLink Online:

>>Breaking News! GSLIS Professors Tang and Denn Awarded Grant
>>Looking West to GSLIS: Profiles from South Hadley
>> GSLIS West Highlights
>> Links from this issue



Breaking News! GSLIS Professors Tang and Denn Awarded Grant page top

GSLIS Professors Rong Tang and Sheila Denn have been awarded $15,000 in support of their project "User Based Question Answering: An Exploratory Study of Community Generated Information Exchange in Yahoo!Answers" from the Simmons College President's Fund for Faculty Excellence. This year marks the first call for proposals to the President's Fund. The Award Letter indicates that "the level of competition was extremely high for the funds available. Congratulations on designing a project that distinguished itself among such a formidable group of proposals."

The project aims at investigating the recent development of user community-based question answering systems such as Yahoo!Answers from the point of view of democratization of information and user-generated content. Specifically, the study will involve analyzing the types of questions people ask, the kind of responses they receive, and the process by which the best answer to a question is chosen. The project will enhance our understanding of user community-mediated communication and information exchange. The study will also contribute to the advancement of discourse theories of question asking and answering.

Looking West to GSLIS: Profiles from South Hadley page top

From pages 1 & 3

Name: Dixie Blake Foster
Title: GSLIS Library Assistant for Mount Holyoke
Dixie's document delivery service: Dixie helps GSLIS West students get the materials they need—she scans and e-mails articles to them and even FedEx-s books! Dixie also handles the reserves for GSLIS West—she orders and processes all reserve books.
How to get in touch with Dixie: Dixie helps you with reference questions via phone, e-mail, or Skype. You can also catch her in person—she is often at Mount Holyoke on Sundays, teaching workshops and instructing and helping students.
Dixie's other GSLIS life: Dixie is a GSLIS alum—she graduated in May.

 

Name: Terry Plum
Title: Program Director, GSLIS West; Assistant Dean for Technology and GSLIS West
How he juggles his many GSLIS hats: Plum commutes to Boston every Wednesday, where the highlight of his meeting-filled day is breakfast at Java City. "Fortunately, the Technology staff are wonderful and virtually manage themselves, so my lack of daily contact does not seem to be a problem. They may welcome the absence."
His favorite avocation: Plum plays tennis on Monday nights (self-proclaimed "old geezer doubles"). His other occupation is walking a border collie.
How he got started in LIS: He worked at the Washington Regional Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (now the Washington Talking Book & Braille Library) in Seattle, Wash.

 

Name: Jeremy Smith
Title: GSLIS West Student Assistant
What his position entails: A little of everything—coordinating e-learning at GSLIS West, answering student tech questions and maintaining the computers in the lab, supporting faculty and staff, and doing general office work.
His pre-LIS life: Before starting at Simmons, Smith was a video editor for a non-profit video production company. He got interested in archives while working for this company—he took it upon himself to organize the archive of the nightly news (the company taped news on four networks every night to use in its videos).
LIS concentration: Archives
Bravest LIS moment: Taking Terry Plum's reference class ("pretty intense") and LIS-415 (Information Organization, a.k.a. Cataloging) at the same time
Family's claim to fame: His grandfather, Joe Smith, won the Boston Marathon in 1942. Joe was from Boston and became a local hero.

 

Name: Adam Williams
Title: LISSA-West President
LIS concentration: He is interested in technology, user interfaces and information services. "As of right now I would be happy in either a public or academic library setting."
When he's not at GSLIS: Williams brews his own beer (he prefers the dark variety). He also enjoys taking, developing, and printing black and white photographs. He's currently working on the pictures he took at his best friend's wedding. He said, "It's a lot of work in addition to the LIS program, but well worth the results."
Pre-LIS life: Williams spent most of his pre-LIS career in retail and currently works for a small business, selling products online. He is making the transition to the library world and recently secured an internship at a community college in Western Mass.
Fun trivia fact: Williams said he is quite good at handstands and used to dabble in acrobatics.

GSLIS West Highlights page top

From pages 1 & 3

  1. Flexibility in scheduling. The Saturday classes may offer a more accommodating schedule for people who work full-time or are long-distance travelers.
  2. Parking. Unlike on the Boston campus, parking is easy at GSLIS West, both on campus and off . . . and you don't have to contend with Red Sox traffic.
  3. Core classes. They fill quickly in Boston, but core classes at GSLIS West often have available seats, despite the smaller class size.
  4. A wide range of electives. GSLIS West continues to add classes as necessary—for example, Assistant Professor Sergio Chaparro-Univazo taught the first International Librarianship class at GSLIS West this summer. This fall, GSLIS West is offering its initial Legal Information Sources class.
  5. Smaller classes, smaller community. GSLIS West classes are small. Because all students come to campus on Saturday, GSLIS West students meet and interact with almost everyone in the program.

UpFront: Looking West to GSLIS page top

—Pages 1 & 3—

Snapshot Profile: Linda Braun page top

—Pages 2 & 3—

Additional Links from Throughout the Issue page top

For questions or comments on InfoLink, contact the editorial staff at infolink@simmons.edu. For technical problems with this page, such as broken links, please contact the GSLIS webmaster at gslisweb@simmons.edu.

Check out the back issues of InfoLink Online >>