[Asis-l] News from SLIS at Kent State, Nov. 15, 2012

[Cunningham, Flo]

Below are headlines and links to recent news from the School of Library and Information Science at Kent State University.


Dublin Core Metadata CIO & OCLC Ontology Expert Visit SLIS

Thomas Baker, Ph.D., chief information officer at Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, and Jeff Young, M.L.I.S. '02, software architect and ontology expert from OCLC, visited the School of Library and Information Science to discuss recent results of the Metadata Vocabulary Junction Project, an ongoing research project on linked data. The project is funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and led by SLIS Professor Marcia Zeng, Ph.D., and Assistant Professor Karen Gracy, Ph.D, with assistance from Laurence Skirvin, M.L.I.S. '11, and other graduate students. Read more at http://www.kent.edu/slis/news/newsdetail.cfm?newsitem=BC6AC03D-A7E6-44D7-9C5AC9EC19023066. 

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SLIS Honors New Beta Phi Mu Members

The School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) at Kent State University inducted nine alumni into the local (Rho) chapter of Beta Phi Mu, the international library and information science honorary society, at its Alumni & Friends Honors & Awards Program on Oct. 23 in Columbus. This year's inductees include: Melissa Higey, Shelly S. Miller, Elizabeth Owens, Kathleen Rak, Laurence Skirvin, Riley Stoermer, Elizabeth Strauss, Maria Vega and Stefanie Walesch. All are 2011 graduates of the Master of Library and Information Science (M.L.I.S.) program. Read more at http://www.kent.edu/slis/news/newsdetail.cfm?newsitem=9E7CA4EF-0F1E-84F2-D1A4CF7DD6020C12.   

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SLIS Hosts Visiting Scholar from University of Barcelona

Cristobal Urbano, Ph.D., has always been fascinated with books and how they can change one's perspective on life. Now, he is interested in how libraries should manage ebook collections. Urbano teaches at the University of Barcelona where his expertise is library and information science ("information and documentation," as it is called in Spain), with particular interest in information sources and services. He is observing four classes and doing research at Kent State this fall. He is focused on what collaborations and connections he can make to support his research in building library collaboration and consortia in El Salvador. Read more at http://www.kent.edu/slis/news/newsdetail.cfm?newsitem=9EA98D50-B7E4-3606-851BB28B774B3098.

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SLIS Student Pursues Degree While Teaching in Spain

Kent State University School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) graduate student Christina Booth believes that everyone should be required to travel and live in a foreign country for at least six months before graduating high school or college. The learning experiences you gain from living abroad are priceless, she said. Booth speaks from personal experience, having visited or lived in several different countries. This year she is teaching English as a Foreign Language at a public school in Spain while continuing work toward her M.L.I.S. Read more at http://www.kent.edu/slis/news/newsdetail.cfm?newsitem=9EB7E389-D1BA-3CD2-D5943D7CF54B8C2D.
 
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Alumni News & Updates

Bonnie Kleinke, M.L.I.S. '10, of Kent, Ohio, is a pharmacy technician instructor.

Pat Tompkins, M.L.I.S. '09, has been employed by the Iron County Mobile Library and the Utah State Library since September 2011.

Tena Wilson, M.L.I.S. '06, has been named executive director of the Stark County Library System.

Matthew Allison, M.L.I.S. '04, was pictured in American Libraries Magazine (published by the American Library Association) in a story about damage caused by Superstorm Sandy: http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/features/11042012/libraries-weather-superstorm.  In the central picture of this article, Allison stands in front of the Book Bus at the Rockaway Peninsula in New York. Allison has been working at Queens Borough Public Library in New York City for the past 10+ years. The worst library damage occurred on the Rockaway Peninsula, just across Jamaica Bay from the JFK International Airport. Five branches of Queens Library had serious flood damage.

Bill Barrow, M.L.S. '98, has received the 2012 Herrick Memorial Award from the Early Settlers' Association of the Western Reserve for his work as the Cleveland Memory Project's co-founder, team leader and public spokesperson.

Michelle Foss Leonard, M.L.S. '95, is the principal investigator for a $298,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to create an online, self-directed, interactive game that creates a role-adopting environment in which Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) graduate students will learn to recognize and avoid plagiarism, falsification of data, and fabrication of data. The online game will be made freely available in November 2012.

Maja Zumer, M.L.S. '93, is co-author, with SLIS Professor Marcia Zeng, Ph.D., and SLIS Associate Professor Athena Salaba, Ph.D.,  of FRSAD: Conceptual Modeling of Aboutness (Santa Barbara, Calif.: Libraries Unlimited, 2012). The volume is part of the Third Millennium Cataloging Series. The FRSAD model (released by IFLA) allows catalogers to more readily determine the answer to the fundamental question, "What's it about?" and helps users by providing a clear description of library holdings. The cover says this publication was "written by three leading members of the IFLA working group that developed the model."

William Coup, M.L.S. '82, has retired after almost 20 years as a reference librarian at the Boynton Beach City Library in Boynton Beach, Fla. He has since moved to Hopkins, S.C., and volunteers at the Columbia Family Search Center helping people research their genealogy.

Read more alumni updates at http://www.kent.edu/slis/alumni/index.cfm. 

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Recent faculty publications and presentations

SLIS Goodyear Professor of Knowledge Management Denise Bedford, Ph.D., along with knowledge management (KM) students Jessica C. Gardner and Sara Feldman, delivered a presentation titled, "Leveraging Taxonomies to Create Descriptions of People and Expertise" at the 2012 Taxonomy Bootcamp, a part of the KM World conference held in Washington, D.C., in October. (Co-presenters also included Jean Pagani, Chief Knowledge Officer, The Monitor Group LLP, and Margo Thomas, Lead Operations Officer, Finance and Private Sector Development, International Finance Corporation.)

SLIS Professor Carolyn Brodie, Ph.D., wrote, "It's as easy as ABC: About Baking and Cookies," in the November 2012 issue of School Library Monthly.

SLIS Assistant Professor Karl V. Fast, Ph.D., was invited to give the closing keynote at UX Brighton, an annual user experience conference in Brighton, UK, on Nov. 2. He spoke about "deep interaction," how interacting with information is part of how people think, and what this means for designing interactive products and services. http://2012.uxbrighton.org.uk/ 

An interview with Health Informatics adjunct instructor John Sharp was published in the Catalan Association for Health (Spain) newsletter (page 22): http://aces.es/repositori/documents/documentacio/ca/ACESinfo%2044.pdf 

SLIS Interim Director Don A. Wicks, Ph.D., and College of Communication and Information doctoral student Darin Freeburg presented a paper, "The Role of Social Capital Theory in the Development of Effective Religious Volunteerism," at the 2012 meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Wicks also is director of the school's Center for the Study of Information and Religion (CSIR).

SLIS Professor Marcia Zeng, Ph.D., gave a presentation titled, "The state of KOS in the Linked Data movement - the publishing, management, and interoperating of KOS for the Semantic Web," at the American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T) 2012 Annual Conference held in Baltimore, Md., Oct. 26-30, 2012.

A poster by SLIS Professor Yin Zhang, Ph.D., and College of Communication and Information doctoral student Sonali Kudva was accepted for presentation at the American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T) 2012 Annual Conference held in Baltimore, Md., Oct. 26-30, 2012. The poster, titled, "An Ecological Approach to Examining Information Needs and Seeking among U.S. Adults in the Internet Age," reports on a study investigating people's information needs and their information seeking in relation to contextual and environmental factors, in light of the theoretical background and framework of the ecological approach. (The poster was displayed at the conference, but due to flight cancellations during Superstorm Sandy, Zhang and Kudva were unable to attend the conference.)
 
Read more news about faculty publications and presentations at http://www.kent.edu/slis/about/slis-points-of-pride.cfm. 



All the best,

Flo

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Flo Cunningham
Marketing Communications and Public Relations Specialist
School of Library and Information Science
Kent State University
330-672-0003
fcunning at kent.edu

www.kent.edu/slis
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Twitter: @KentStateSLIS

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library. -- Jorge Luis Borges