Category: News

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Syracuse iSchool mourns the passing of research professor Joanne Silverstein

7/27/2010

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Joanne Silverstein, an assistant research professor at the Syracuse University School of Information Studies and director of research and development of the Information Institute of Syracuse, died July 27, 2010. She was 58 years old.
A dedicated teacher, well-known researcher, and cherished colleague, Silverstein stepped down from active duties in August 2007 to, in her words, “make time for the simpler pleasures in life and give [her] body and mind the time that it needs to heal from a chronic illness.”

“Joanne made many wonderful contributions in the time she was with us, both in her teaching and her active research with the Information Institute,” said iSchool Dean Elizabeth D. Liddy. “Joanne loved and excelled at the lofty aspects of academic research as well as prizing the very real outcomes it could accomplish in the lives of students.”

Silverstein first came to the iSchool in 1991 as a master’s student in the information management program. After earning the master’s in 1993, she then went on to earn a Ph.D. in information science and technology in 1998. She was then hired as a professor by the school and researcher by the Information Institute.

Her research focused on digital literacy, participatory librarianship, ontologies, metadata, and digital reference services. She was interested in the evolving role of the human intermediary in information seeking and retrieval. Her research was funded by such organizations as U.S. Department of Education, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, and the National Science Foundation.

Associate Professor and Director of the Information Institute R. David Lankes credits Silverstein with helping to build the research center. “Her insatiable curiosity, dedication to the school, and invaluable input at the Institute can never be replaced,” he said. “She did some amazing research in the area of digital libraries and the information needs of children. She always sought the best for the school, and she never shied away from a hard problem. She was an heir to the legacies of former iSchool Deans Robert Taylor, Jeffrey Katzer, and Ray von Dran, and she served that legacy well.”

A service will be held at 10 a.m. Friday, July 30 at the Temple Concord, 910 Madison Street, in Syracuse.

The iSchool has also established a memorial site in her honor. Everyone is invited to share a memory, photo, or comment at http://ischool.syr.edu/joanne. These remembrances will be put together and shared with Joanne’s family at a later date.

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Joanne Silverstein

This morning Joanne Silverstein passed away after a long and brave struggle with cancer. I could write more this amazing woman and her work in digital libraries, virtual reference, and kids information needs, but right now I just can’t. Right now all I can do is mourn the loss of a dear friend, and send my heart and prayers to Joanne’s husband Paul. We are all living in a better world because of Joanne.

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Marie Radford Kicks Butt

A big congrats to one of my favorite people Marie Radford who has won RUSA’s Isadore Gilbert Mudge Award:

In selecting Radford for this honor, the committee cited her many accomplishments, including authorship of four books, among them “Conducting the Reference Interview (2nd ed.),” “The Reference Encounter: Interpersonal Communication in the Academic Library” and “Web Research: Selecting, Evaluating, and Citing”; editorship of three other books, including “Reference Renaissance: Current and Future Trends”and “Academic Library Research”;numerous articles published in top library journals; and dozens of conference papers and presentations.

In addition to her publications, Radford brings high energy, deep passion and an interdisciplinary approach to the study of face-to-face and virtual reference. She has provided inspirational leadership in professional organizations such as RUSA, ALA, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE). Radford is currently co-chair of the conference program for the Reference Renaissance 2010 and co-chair of contributed papers for ACRL’s 2011 National Conference. She will be the keynote speaker for the upcoming 2010 REFolution Conference.

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Syracuse iSchool alumni Marie L. Radford and R. David Lankes to launch new book April 5 at Bird Library

Marie L. Radford G’75 and R. David Lankes ’92, G’99 will celebrate the publication of their new book Reference Renaissance: Current and Future Trends (Neal-Schuman, 2010) on Monday, April 5 at 4:00 p.m. in the Peter Graham Scholarly Commons on the first floor of E.S. Bird Library.

Radford will give a talk about what information services will look like in the years ahead. She will discuss the opportunities, challenges, and realities that librarians will encounter. She will also address topics including how librarians can maintain equilibrium amid such rapid change, how emerging technologies will continue to impact reference services, and evolving user demands, especially from the tech-savvy and mercurial Millennial Generation.

Radford is an associate professor at the Rutgers School of Communication & Information. Her research interests are interpersonal communication aspects of reference/information services (both traditional and virtual), nonverbal communication, cultural studies, and media stereotypes of librarians. She is the 2010 winner of the Isadore Gilbert Mudge Award for distinguished contributions to reference librarianship given by the Reference and User Services Association of the American Library Association.

Prior to joining the Rutgers faculty, Radford was acting dean of Pratt Institute’s School of Information and Library Science in New York City. She has published numerous books and articles in top library and information science journals and frequently presents at national and international scholarly and professional venues. She is a co-author of the book Conducting the Reference Interview, 2nd ed. (Neal-Schuman, 2009). Her latest book is co-edited with R. David Lankes.

R. David Lankes is library and information science program director at the Syracuse iSchool as well as associate professor and director of the Information Institute of Syracuse (IIS). The IIS houses several high-profile research efforts, including the Educator’s Reference Desk and projects related to the NSF’s National Science Digital Library.??Lankes co-founded the award-winning AskERIC project and served as director of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Information & Technology. He also founded the Virtual Reference Desk project and served as one of the architects of the Gateway to Education Materials, a standards-based system for describing and finding educational materials on the Internet.??Lankes has authored, co-authored, or edited 14 books, written over 30 book chapters and journal articles and numerous pieces for information professionals. He has been principle investigator on over $13 million of competitively awarded research grants, and has served as a researcher on numerous projects. He has been a keynote speaker around the globe, giving more than 140 presentations at national and international conferences.

Please note this is not the Atlas to New Librarianship that will be published by MIT Press and ACRL in Spring 2011

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Syracuse iSchool Library & Information Science program director R. David Lankes to speak at U.S. Embassy event in Rome, Italy

R. David Lankes, director of the Library & Information Science program at the Syracuse University School of Information Studies (iSchool), will speak at the U.S. Embassy Rome’s spring event “Libraries in the 21st Century.” The event will be held Wednesday, April 21, 2010.

The day-long conference is being organized by the U.S. Embassy to Italy and the American University of Rome. The conference is an initiative to engage the Italian library community in a dialogue with American peers, with the aim of sharing the best and most innovative practices taking place at American libraries.

Speakers at the event will include professionals from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), NATO, Università degli Studi di Parma, Università di Roma “La Sapienza,” Università degli Studi di Cagliari, and Università del Salento. Topics covered will include libraries as participatory places, new librarianship, social media for libraries, catalog sharing, marketing libraries, and the future of books. Lankes’ presentation will focus on how to build a new librarianship.

In addition to speaking at the U.S. Embassy event in Rome, Lankes will also give a presentation the next day in Naples at the Palazzo Donn’Anna to approximately 70 local librarians.

Lankes is LIS program director at the Syracuse iSchool as well as associate professor and director of the Information Institute of Syracuse (IIS). The IIS houses several high-profile research efforts, including the Educator’s Reference Desk and projects related to the NSF’s National Science Digital Library.

Lankes co-founded the award-winning AskERIC project in 1992 and served as director of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Information & Technology from 1998 to 2003. He also founded the Virtual Reference Desk project responsible for building a national network of education expertise. In addition, he was also one of the architects of the Gateway to Education Materials, a standards-based system for describing and finding educational materials on the Internet.
Lankes has served on advisory boards and study teams in the fields of libraries, telecommunications, education, and transportation, including at the National Academies. He has been appointed as a visiting fellow at the National Library of Canada and the Harvard School of Education. He was also the first fellow of the American Library Association’s Office for Information Technology Policy.

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UIS staff and faculty help to coordinate state-wide ILEAD U initiative

I don’t think I ever put up information on a new IMLS initiative I’m working on with the State Library of Illinois. The following is a nice press release on the project from another project partner, UIS:

Staff and faculty members from the University of Illinois Springfield’s Brookens Library and the Center for Online Learning, Research and Service (COLRS) are teaming up with staff members from the Illinois State Library and other libraries throughout the state for a prestigious new institute that will be one of the most significant Illinois library initiatives of 2010. The institute, called ILEAD (Illinois Libraries Explore, Apply and Discover) U: the 21st Century Technology Tools Institute for Illinois Library Staff, will be comprised of three in-person sessions from February 23 to 25, June 15 to 17 and October 26 to 28 on the UIS campus. The sessions will be supplemented by online instruction between meeting dates.

ILEAD U, funded by a Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program Grant awarded to the Illinois State Library by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, will encourage both the experimentation with and building of participatory Web services and programs. Library educator R. David Lankes of Syracuse University will lead the instructors for the project.

As part of the institute, the UIS participants and their colleagues from other Illinois libraries will implement web technologies that foster community participation and develop leadership, innovation and positive change.

The institute is the brainchild of Anne Craig, director of the Illinois State Library, who has “exceptional vision in seeing a need and conceiving of such an innovative way to meet it,” according to Dean Jane Treadwell, University Librarian at UIS. Treadwell is chairing the steering committee which selected the instructors, mentors and teams of participants and will guide the work of the project.

Other UIS participants include Natalie Tagge, visiting Instructional Services Librarian at Brookens Library, who will serve as a mentor in ILEAD U, and two other Brookens librarians, Pamela M. Salela and Amanda Binder, who will participate in cross-institutional teams that will learn to use participatory technology tools to understand and respond to patron needs.

“We hope to foster a philosophy that technology becomes powerful in libraries when people engage with it critically and thoughtfully,” said Tagge.

Additionally, Ray Schroeder and Shari Smith of the Center for Online Learning, Research and Service are acting as consultants to the instructors for the project, and David Racine of the Institute for Legal, Legislative and Policy Studies will direct the evaluation of the ILEAD U grant.

“We in the Brookens Library and COLRS are very excited to collaborate with the Illinois State Library on this project that has the potential to transform the way that libraries interact with their patrons,” noted Treadwell.

Smith, associate director of COLRS, added, “The ILEAD U grant is an excellent example of why libraries and librarians are uniquely qualified to lead their communities forward to a new knowledge society. The grant has been carefully crafted to include cutting-edge technology, careful assessment and evaluation, location-specific consideration and stakeholders from around the state.”

Participatory technology tools will include:
Blogging tools
Digital audio/podcasting, photography and video
RSS feeds
Social networking and photo-sharing sites
Videoconferencing and web conferencing
Virtual reference and virtual worlds (ie. Second Life)
Gaming
Instant messaging
And more

“The Illinois State Library is proud of its strong commitment to continuing education and providing librarians with the tools and resources necessary to address the ever-changing needs of their patrons,” said Secretary of State and State Librarian Jesse White. “Nowhere is the need for continuing education more important than in the area of technology. Librarians need to constantly enhance their skills to keep up to date with the latest technology, and ILEAD U represents an exciting, innovative new program to build technology and leadership skills among Illinois librarians.”

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New Year, New Web Site

Greetings all,

I have changed my homepage (if you are just reading my blog you probably didn’t notice). Why? Well my former website was a hybrid site for both my professional work, and the area of participatory librarianship. Participatory librarianship, or new librarianship as I am now calling it, has grown beyond my personal agenda. Also, the Participatory Librarianship Starter Kit site is about to go under a pretty major transformation with the upcoming Atlas of New Librarianship (more on that in the months to come). It seemed like a good time to divide things.

So if you are looking for articles, presentations, and ideas on participatory or new librarianship, go to http://ptbed.org. Want stuff on me including my presentations, articles, and such: http://www.DavidLankes.org. No need to change RSS feeds.

Also, I’m changing the “Participatory”category on my blog to New/Participatory Librarianship.”

Let me know what you think.

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Where’s Dave?

So I noticed my last blog post was August 25th. The short answer to the title’s question “Where’s Dave” is: writing. I can’t go into too many details (yet), but I’m working on my next book. It has been a pretty intensive experience and taken some quiet contemplation. Also, since I’m taking on the role of director of Syracuse’s LIS program I’ve cut back on speaking gigs, so fewer screencasts.

Things will be picking up in the next few weeks. I’m still here, and really cool stuff is happening. Stay tuned.

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Podcast Feed Consolidated

So it doesn’t make sense to have two RSS feeds anymore, one for the all blog entries and one just for podcasts. I’ve consolidated everything into just one feed: https://davidlankes.org/rdlankes/blog/?feed=rss2.

If you subscribe to this in iTunes or any podcasting tool you will still get all my presentations and screencasts. Please update your feed readers (note just if you subscribed to just the podcast one). If you are reading this, then you have the right link already.

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Lankes Named to board

Library council named to advise OCLC in development of Web-scale management services

OCLC has named members of a Library Advisory Council that has been put in place to advise OCLC in developing the first Web-scale cooperative library management service.

In April, OCLC announced plans to launch a new service for Web-scale, cooperative library management services—network-level tools for managing library collections through circulation and delivery, print and licensed acquisitions, and license management. These new services will complement existing OCLC Web-scale services, such as cataloging, resource sharing, and integrated discovery.

The Library Advisory Council comprises leaders from the library community who will assist OCLC in creating a service strategy that will meet the needs of libraries across various sectors and geographies. Members of the Library Advisory Council are:

Helene Blowers, Digital Strategy Director, Columbus Metropolitan Library

John Helmer, Executive Director, Orbis Cascade Alliance

Jan Ison, Executive Director, Lincoln Trail Libraries System

R. David Lankes, Associate Professor, Syracuse University

Sarah McHugh, Statewide Projects Librarian, Montana State Library

Mary Piorun, Associate Director, University of Massachusetts Medical Center Library

Tim Rogers, Executive Director, NCLIVE

John Teskey, Director of Libraries, University of New Brunswick

Andrew Pace, OCLC, ex officio

The Library Advisory Council will hold its first meeting following the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago. The Advisory Council will expand soon to include more global representation, and pilot sites for the new Web-scale management services will be announced at the ALA conference.