February 2010
Gerry Benoit, Lisa Hussey, and doctoral students Peishan Bartley, Abdulateef Khairi, and Falah Rashid presented two posters at the American Society for Information Science & Technology annual meeting, in Vancouver, BC. The posters were “Iraq's Digital Library Dilemma: OpenSource Digital Objects
Repository Architecture, Tools, and Interfaces” and the other was “Digital Object Repurposing: Seven Case Studies from the Publishing and Information Industries.” A small .pdf version will be linked to Benoit’s homepage, web.simmons.edu/~benoit. In addition, Benoit moderated a panel on Bioinformatics Education in LIS Programs.
Dean Michèle Cloonan and Prof. Daniel Joudrey each gave talks at the Cataloging Classification Section Forum (CCS) at the midwinter ALA Conference in January. Dr. Cloonan's paper was titled, “Problems and Opportunities in Cataloging Research and Pedagogy.” Dr. Joudrey's paper was titled “The Effect of Controlled Vocabulary on Keyword Searching.” The Forum was devoted to discussion about cataloging research and examples of
current research.
Additionally, Dean Cloonan has just had published the following: 1) “Libraries, Archives, and the Pursuit of Access,” a chapter in the book The Impact of 911 on the Media, Arts, and Entertainment (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
2) “Preserving Records of Enduring Value,” in Currents of Archival Thinking (Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited, 2010). 3) “Conservation and Preservation of Library and Archival Materials,” in the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences (CRC Press, 2009-2010).
GSLIS CE program manager Kris Liberman ’87LS became president of SLA Boston on January 1, 2010.
Martha Mahard presented a paper that she prepared in conjunction with Ross Harvey, Terry Plum, and Jeannette Bastian at the ALISE conference on Wednesday, January 13. The paper was entitled “Building a Virtual Archives and Preservation Curriculum Laboratory at Simmons College: a Case Study in
Collaborative Construction.” It describes the team’s progress on a project funded by grants from IMLS, NHPRC, and the Pottruck Technology Resource Center.
GSLIS students Myrna Morales and Derek Mosley were selected by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) to participate in the 2009–11 Initiative to Recruit a Diverse Workforce as ARL Diversity Scholars http://www.arl.org/news/pr/ diversityscholars09.shtml. The initiative offers funding to students from underrepresented groups to support their MLIS
education. The program is funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services http://www.imls.gov and by voluntary contributions from fifty-two ARL member libraries.
GSLIS Prof. Rong Tang’s paper entitled “Mental Models of Federated Searching: Qualitative Analysis and Coding of Drawings by Librarians and Students” was accepted for presentation in the Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries International Conference (QQML 2010). The conference will take place in Chania in Crete, Greece on May 25- 28, 2010. Tang has also received a contract award from Harvard Center for Biomedical Informatics (CBMI) to be a usability consultant to the redesign of the Harvard Catalyst Website (http://catalyst.harvard.edu). This is an ongoing collaboration
effort between Simmons GSLIS Usability Lab and Harvard Catalyst.
Congratulations to...
Linda Braun is now the first, and only, three-time recipient of the WISE Consortium Faculty of the Year Award for Excellence in Online Education.
Prof. Maggie Bush will receive the Distinguished Service Award from the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) at the ALA Annual Conference this summer. The award honors an individual member of ALSC who has made significant contributions to and an impact on, library service to children and/or ALSC.
Dean Michèle Cloonan is the 2010 recipient of the Paul Banks and Carolyn Harris Preservation Award. The award is given annually by the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (a division of the American Library Association) recognizing the contribution of a outstanding professional
preservation specialist who has been active in the field of preservation and/or conservation for library and/or archival materials.
Katharine Dunn has been selected as the winner of the Beta Phi Mu Scholarship. Katharine’s application essay was chosen for her demonstrated commitment to service.
Laura Saunders won the Jean Tague-Sutcliffe Award for Doctoral Research at the 2010 ALISE conference. Saunders won for her poster entitled, “Information Literacy as a Student Learning Outcome.”
GSLIS MLIP Professor of Practice/Adjunct Maureen Sullivan has been named the 2010 Academic/Research Librarian of the Year by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). The award will be conferred at the joint ACRL/LLAMA Awards Presentation at the 2010 ALA Annual Conference in
Washington, D.C., in June 2010.
GSLIS alum Winston Tabb ’72LS, Johns Hopkins Dean of University Libraries and Museums, was nominated by President Obama to be a member of the National Museum and Library Services Board. For more information visit:
http://blogs.jhunewsletter.com/?p=211.
For more information about these awards please visit InfoLink Online: http://gslis.simmons.edu/infolink.
Please send your notes to us at infolink@simmons.edu.