Greetings iSchoolers and welcome to the Summer 09 edition of the e-newsletter for alumni and friends. The end of the Spring semester is graduation time and I always enjoy our school's event which brings together gtaduates, their friends and families, and the faculty and staff of the school in a highly interactive celebration of success. For our graduates, even in these difficult times, opportunities abound and as we see in our graduating class, employment prospects for information graduates remain healthy. While it has been a challenging year financially for all universities, we in the iSchool are facing the future with renewed optimism. This summer marks our move to new quarters as we begin to occupy 40,000 sf of newly-renovated space designed to house all our faculty, staff, classrooms, labs and students in one building for the first time in decades. We will have a formal event to mark the occasion in Fall. We have also recruited a superb cohort of new faculty, with the prospect of further hires yet to come as the school goes through unprecedented growth. These developments are the outcome of planning efforts made over the last five years and reflect the commitment of the University of Texas to developing our school into one of the best in the nation.

In the next year we anticipate a spike in enrollments due to ever-increasing demand for our program. The faculty recognized the importance of our school taking positive steps to enable more people to receive the education for a productive career and while it will temporarily impact our faculty:student ratio, we view this decision as the right one. We remain committed to in-person education in Austin and while we will never graduate the same numbers of students as schools offering distance education, we believe the experience students receive in our program equips them for leadership and advancement in the information professions. The feedback from employers suggests we are on track, and we won't lose sight of this even with a slightly larger cohort in the coming year.

We have much to be proud of in this, our 60th anniversary. It has been a record year for funded research, for new faculty hires, for doctoral student success, and for the awards and recognitions to faculty by outside agencies. You can read about these achievements below. I believe the school has some of the best faculty, staff and students in the nation and we are on a course to secure the long-term health of our program. You can all play a significant part in this by supporting our efforts and I am pleased so many first-time donors stepped up this year to help us out. We are a small school in a big university but our graduates make a difference in the lives of so many and are imbued with values to serve the information needs of all. Your support is vital and appreciated.

Stay connected.

Andrew

Dean Dillon in the News
This spring, Dean Dillon was interviewed by News 8 Austin about a possible correlation between time of Facebook and low grade-point averages. Dean Dillon was also interviewed by Fox 7 Austin, about consumer behavior on Craigslist.

Save-the-date!
Join us for a celebration at our new home at 1616 Guadalupe on October 29th. Look for your formal invitation in the next few months!

New Staff Member Joins the iSchool
Rebeccah Hill joined the iSchool staff in March as an Administrative Associate. Rebeccah has been with UT for almost five years, most recently working for the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. She will be a key player in the iSchool's course scheduling, textbook orders, course inventory and equipment inventory.

Faculty News

Dr. Bill Aspray, Bill and Lewis Suit Professor of Information Technologies, has been awarded the 2008 Choice Outstanding Academic Title award for William Aspray and Paul Ceruzzi, The Internet and American Business (MIT Press). This is the second time Dr. Aspray has received this prestigious award. He first accepted this award in 2006 with Joanne Cohoon of University of Virginia, for Women and information technology: research on underrepresentation (MIT Press).

Dr. Caroline Frick, Assistant Professor and Founder and Executive Director of the Texas Archive of the Moving Image, has been very busy with the Texas Film Round-Up. The Texas Archive of the Moving Image and the Office of the Governor's Texas Film Commission have partnered to produce this traveling program that seeks to digitize Texas-related film and video for the purpose of preserving Texas history. The Texas Film Round-Up began in early March and will continue through July. To see complete stories on the Texas Film Round-Up please visit this article in the Chronicle and this article on Austin 360.

Dr. Barbara Immroth, Professor, was awarded a "Lifetime Achievement Award" at the 2009 Texas Library Association Conference in April. This is a new award given to a longstanding TLA member, recognized as having an exemplary career in librarianship, is active in his/her participation in professional organizations, and has demonstrated creative leadership and service to the library profession. Full article

Departing Faculty Members
The iSchool is sad to see two assistant professors leave at the conclusion of the spring semester. Dr. Miles Efron will be moving on to join University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Dr. Don Turnbull has decided to pursue a career outside of academia. We wish you both the best!

Stay Connected
What's newsworthy in your life? Have you changed jobs? Have you been recognized for your work? We want to hear from you!
Update us on your current career, location and interesting thing happening in your life. Send us an email at

iSchool Alum has a Hand in Presidential History
Dan Paterson (MLIS '03) is now Senior Rare Book Conservator in the Conservation Division at the Library of Congress. Some of his most recent work was a part of the historic Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama. Dan had the opportunity to make a protective "travelling box" for the Lincoln Bible used to swear in President Obama at the ceremony this January. To prepare for inclement weather, he made the box with laminated binder's board and a core of Marva-seal so the micro-environment within the box would be as stable as possible.

LIS Alumni Survey
If you graduated from the School of Information in the past five years, you may be contacted by the Workforce Issues in Library and Information Science (WILIS) survey led by Professor Joanne Gard Marshall at the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This important study is federally funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services to track the career moves of recent graduates of North American LIS programs. Survey Science Group will be administering the web-based survey. Your participation in this study is important, as the results will help inform our efforts in preparing students for the information workforce. You can be assured that all information involved in the survey is considered confidential and will only be used for the WILIS study.

Students

Doctoral Student Featured in Alcalde
Doctoral student and assistant instructor, Joe Sanchez, was featured in the recent issue of Alcalde for his class, "Working in Virtual Worlds".

Association of Research Libraries Career Enhancement Scholar
iSchool student, Arturo Longoria, was selected as an Association of Research Libraries Career Enhancement Scholar!

Student Publication
iSchool student, Jillian Anderson, recently had a paper published in Collection Management (volume 28 No 1 (2009)) entitled, "Using professional forums to assess historians' e-resource needs."

iSchool Students Visit New Orleans Archives Archive management students visited a land-records repository in New Orleans in early May. Not only did our students get a taste of the developement of a river city over hundreds of years, they also discovered records of the settlement of the Texas Territory.

Photo courtesy of Ted Jackson / The Times-Picayune

Student Wins Science-Technology SLA Essay Contest
iSchool Student and Director of SASI, Thea Allen, has been awarded a free Special Libraries Association membership. Thea's essay, outlining creative and relevant ways the Science-Technology division of SLA should engage with library and information science students who are looking forward to a career in Science-Technology librarianship, was chosen as one of two winners from a number of entries.

New iSchool Placements
The School of Information is proud to announce the placement of two graduating doctoral students in the academic field. Don Hammerly and Joe Sanchez, will be leaving the University of Texas School of Information, this spring, having accepted faculty positions with Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois,and Rutgers University, respectively. Congratulations and best of luck, Joe and Don!

Capstone
During the spring 2009 semester, 52 master's students completed professional experience projects in a wide variety of professional settings, including academic and public libraries, museums, non-profits and the private sector in order to fulfill the capstone requirement. Some of the sites hosting our capstone students included Dell Children's Medical Center, the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, Texas Archive of the Moving Image, the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, Campbell Travel Resources, and Texas Parks and Wildlife. Collection development, usability studies, web development, library programming, digitization, and library design were among the projects completed. At the end of the semester, these students, as well as a master's thesis student, two school library practicum students and a conservation studies student participated in the capstone poster session, making it the largest poster session to date, with 56 presenters.

Spring Convocation Saturday, May 23 was a big day for 66 iSchool students, who are now alumni. Commencement was held at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center; 63 students were prestented with Master's degrees, and three students were presented wtih doctoral degrees. Alumnus, Professor M. Jennifer Parrish, Director, The University of California Hastings College of the Law Library, attended as a guest speaker for the ceremony, and alumnus, Patricia Smith, Executive Director of Texas Library Association, was presented with the 2009, School of Information, Distinguished Alumni Award. Congratulations, 2009 graduates! We are proud of you!

iSchool Advisory Council Meeting

Chaired by alumna and iSchool adjunct professor Claudia Chidester, the Advisory Council met on April 17 in the iSchool conference room. In addition to presentations from Dean Dillon and development director Luke Dunlap, the Council members heard a presentation from guest speaker Leigh Watson Healy, chief analyst of Outsell, Inc. Ms. Healy, the daughter of Council member and iSchool benefactor Kim Watson of Dallas, spoke about emerging trends in the information sector. After the morning session, the group visited the new iSchool facilities at 1616 Guadalupe (pictured) and had lunch across the street at the Clay Pit, our favorite Indian restaurant. Following lunch, there was an optional tour of the Harry Ransom Center, led by iSchool student and HRC curator Danielle Sigler. The School of Information Advisory Council is comprised of twenty alumni and friends who represent various areas of the information profession and regions of the US. Members advise the dean on opportunities related to employment and fundraising. This year, Council members have contributed nearly $20,000 in gifts to the school. For more information about the iSchool Advisory Council, contact Luke Dunlap at

In Memoriam

Nancy Crumpton, (MLIS '05) Passed away in late December, 2008.

Thais Bullard, benefactor, passed away January 9, 2009. Many at the iSchool knew from her frequent visits here. She was a supporter of the school and had been unwell for some time.

Ida Margaret Sowash passed away on March 7, 2009. Margaret received her certification in Library Science from the iSchool and served as a librarian in Austin for many years.

Economy and Information

The economy has been less than predictable lately. It seems as though news of bankruptcy, layoffs and rising unemployment rates make it in to the news almost daily. It's difficult to escape the often, grim news on the economy and job market. It may be even more difficult not to let the economic news affect your attitude. It's no wonder our current students are concerned about career opportunity availability upon completion of their degrees.

Our Career Services office recently conducted a survey of our students to aid library directors and human resource managers in the recruitment of our current students. Over 65% of our current students participated in this survey. Of the participants, 51% considered there to be limited or no jobs available, 33% believed there to be an adequate number of jobs, and only 7% believed job opportunities were plentiful. While there is no question budgets have been reduced, and some organizations are cutting back on employees and hiring programs, many organizations are continuing to hire, and they are hiring our graduates. In fact, a human resource representative who recently visited our school to recuit our students, remarked "we love to come to UT because your students are so smart!"

The good news, is your degree from the School of Information from the University of Texas at Austin, is very valuable. Employers constantly post job openings on our website and arrange recruiting visits at our school. Additionally, the iSchool is one of the only schools at UT to offer a full range of career services to it's graduating students as well as it's alumni, for life. Our Career Services Office does not require a fee for service, nor does it limit the services an alumnus can subscribe to once you've entered the workforce. And if you live outside Austin or Texas, we can help you there, too. The iSchool Career Services Office does not focus exclusively on Austin or Texas job placement, in fact there are currently 252 job openings posted on our Career Services JobWeb page, and most of them are outsideTexas. Whether it's a career change necessitated by economic factors, or you just want something new, we are here to help. A few services we can offer include help with preparing resumes, cover letters, and preparing for interviews. We also offer Alumni Speaker Series, employer information sessions, and panel discussions by graduates and professionals. Whether you are a first-year student looking for a part-time job, or an alumnus who has been in the workforce for 20 years, it is never too soon or too late to take advantage of these services. For more information, visit our Career Services Website If you have any questions about the iSchool Career Services Office contact: (512) 471-8806 or

Did you know...

If you are interested in a major gift, a multi-year pledge, or including the School of Information in your estate plans, please contact our development officer, Luke Dunlap, directly at or by phone at 512.471.8421.