Alumni E-News
The University of Texas at Austin, School of Information
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/
Issue 12 - November 2005

Welcome! In this issue:

- Dean's Word
- iSchool Opens New Lab to Test Information Design and Use
- Kilgarlin Center Receives Grant from the Tocker Foundation
- iSchool Awarded Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)
- New Endowed Professorship Created
- Alumni, Faculty, Student, and Staff News
- Upcoming Events
- Supporting the iSchool
- Contact Us



- Dean's Word
Greetings and welcome to the fall 2005 edition of the alumni
e-news. It has been a busy few months in Austin and we were delighted
to admit a superbly qualified cohort of new students. Currently we
have 274 students enrolled from 14 different countries, 4 continents
and 30 states of the U.S. More than half our students are now 30 or
under. We continue to attract a highly motivated and very talented
group of students, which is the best guarantee of the strength of our
program in the years ahead. Admission is competitive and our goal at
UT is to maintain current size and quality rather than grow just to
meet demand.

As you will learn below, we have had a number of successes in securing
external grants and awards from IMLS, ALA/Ingenta, IBM, and The Tocker
Foundation.  A quick perusal of our publications page will also show
how productive the faculty has been this year in sharing their
research with the world. I am also delighted to share with you the
news that we have successfully met the targets to endow a new
professorship in honor of former dean Brooke Sheldon. This is
wonderful news and a credit to the generosity of donors, especially
the Tocker Foundation.

Finally, we welcome a new faculty member in the coming
semester. Dr. Gary Geisler, an expert in digital libraries, will join
us from Simmons College. You can find our more about Gary by looking
at our web site. We are all delighted to welcome him to the School of
Information. I can promise you more exciting hires in the months
ahead.



- iSchool Opens New Lab to Test Information Design and Use

The School of Information is now home to a new laboratory for studying
people's interactions with information: The Information eXperience
(IX) lab. Director and associate professor Randolph Bias, plus other
iSchool faculty, students, and staff launched the lab formally on
November 3rd in conjunction with World Usability Day. This new
facility, located in SZB 561, will allow one-on-one user testing and
serve as the source or the target of remote usability testing. Testers
in the IX Lab will be able to broadcast testing sessions from the lab,
in real time, to professionals located elsewhere, plus they will be
able to monitor human interaction with various forms of information
from anywhere in the world. The opening event attracted more than 80
visitors from around Austin.

To follow the progress of the IX Lab see:
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~utasist/ixlab/index.html



- Kilgarlin Center Receives Grant from the Tocker Foundation

The Kilgarlin Center was the recipient of a generous grant from the
Tocker Foundation to support 15 conservator students. Find out more at
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/kilgarlin/news/#granthttp://www.ischool.utexas.edu/kilgarlin/news/#tocker



- iSchool Awarded Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)

A $251,910 grant was awarded to the iSchool to educate doctoral
students to teach preservation in library and information science
programs. Read the press release at
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/kilgarlin/news/#grant



- New Endowed Professorship Created

The School of Information is pleased to announce the creation of the
Brooke Sheldon Endowed Professorship which will be used to attract
faculty expertise in the areas of leadership and management. Brooke, a
former dean of the school from 1991 to 1996, remains a tireless
champion of education in librarianship and the development of leaders
for the field. Support for the endowment came from friends, family,
former students, colleagues, as well as from a substantial donation by
The Tocker Foundation.



- Alumni News

Alumni in the Washington D.C. area gathered for food, drink, and good
conversation at a local restaurant. Check out the photos at
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/about/news/alumni_dc_09212005.php

To find out the latest news on alumni go to
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/people/alumni_updates_11092005.php

If you would like to share your information with the nearly 800
subscribers to this newsletter, please send an email to
chansen@ischool.utexas.edu



- Faculty News

Dr. Randolph Bias, associate professor, received a $40,000 Faculty
Award from the IBM-Austin Center for Advanced Studies. More
information can be found at
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/about/news/bias_ibm_09272005.php

In late September, friends, family, and colleagues gathered to
celebrate Professor Donald Davis' retirement from the iSchool. The
celebration was held at the Rather House at the Episcopal Seminary in
Austin. This summer Davis participated in the C.S. Lewis Institute's
triennial conference, Oxbridge, 2005: "Making All Things New: The
Good, the True, and the Beautiful in the 21st Century" where he lead a
three-session seminar on "The History of the Book and the Libraries of
Oxford." In October he participated in an international conference
co-sponsored by ALA's Library History Round Table at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he presented a paper with colleague
Huahnwen Cheng entitled "Loss of a Recorded Heritage: Destruction of
the Hanlin Academy During the Peking Siege of 1900."

Dean Andrew Dillon serves on the new TLA Task Force on Library
Professionalism charged by President Gretchen Hoffman to examine
leadership, ethics and advocacy in LIS education.

Dr. Patricia Galloway, assistant professor, was awarded the first
Ingenta Research Award by the Library Research Round Table of ALA. The
award provides support for her studies on institutional repositories.

Dr. David Gracy, Governor Bill Daniel Professor in Archival
Enterprise, received the 2005 Katherine Drake Hart History
Preservation Award from The Austin History Center. The organization
selected Gracy for his noteworthy contribution to the preservation of
Austin and Travis County history. Gracy is a longtime Austin History
Center supporter and AHCA board member. He has served in several roles
with AHCA including the chair of the annual Audray Bateman Randle
Lecture Series.

Dr. Glynn Harmon, professor, supervised the successful dissertation
efforts of Karen Balcom, (MLS, 1972) on Discovery and Information
Seeking Patterns of Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine. He is
now preparing, as guest editor, a special issue of the Bulletin of
ASIST about the first iSchool Conference, held at Penn State
University, where 18 schools gathered to discuss the future of the
field. More information can be found at:
http://iconference.ist.psu.edu/content/view/12/40/


Dr. Barbara Immroth, professor, attended the International Federation
of Library Associations World Congress in Oslo, Norway in August as a
representative of the American Library Association to the Section on
School Libraries and Learning Resources Centers. She wrote the "On My
Mind" column in the September 2005 issue of American Libraries. As a
member of the ALA Public and Cultural Programs Advisory Committee, she
urges librarians to support the ALA Public Programs Office in raising
money to meet the National Endowment for the Humanities Challenge
grant which when funded, will ensure high quality programs organized
by ALA for libraries through out the U.S.

Shirley Lukenbill, lecturer, was featured in a video filmed by PBS
(Wisconsin Public Television) which aired on PBS stations nationwide
in October. The video project entitled "Beyond TV" will show the
various types of services PBS offers for teachers that go beyond
public television. Shirley was featured because she has taken many PBS
TeacherLine courses and is now teaching these courses online to
teachers and librarians locally and worldwide.

Roy M. Mersky, joint appointee and professor of law, received the 2005
Marian Gould Gallagher Distinguished Service Award at this year's AALL
Conference in San Antonio.

Loriene Roy, professor, was invited to serve on the TexShare Advisory
Board (TSAB) for the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. She
will serve for a three-year appointment, representing the general
public. She is a candidate for the 2007-2008 ALA presidency.

A list of recent publications from faculty can be found at
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/about/news/view_news_item.php?ID=109http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/research/publications.php



- Student News

The iSchool is proud to introduce the IMLS Youth, Community, Libraries
Doctoral Fellows who are beginning their course work this fall.  Find
out who they are by clicking on
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/about/news/view_news_item.php?ID=109

Antony Cherian, doctoral student, screened his latest documentary
"Hill Country" in Austin on July 30, 2005.

Doctoral student Maria E. Gonzalez received a $10,000 UTOPIA grant to
provide online access of hundreds of vintage photographs. Read more at
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/about/news/utopia_09142005.php

Martha Jenks, master's student, received the George Atiyeh prize that
covers her attendance at the joint meeting of the Middle East
Librarians Association (MELA) and of the Middle East Studies
Association of North America (MESA) in Washington, D.C. She will
receive a cash award and will have registration fees for both MELA and
MESA paid.



- Staff News

Bette Oliver, retired assistant editor of Libraries & Culture,
presented "The Bibliotheque Nationale During the French Revolution" at
Wayne State University, Library and Information Science Program.



- Upcoming Events

December 10 - Fall Graduation Ceremony, 12:00 noon, Avaya Auditorium,
ACE 2.302Reception immediately following in the ACE Connector Lobby.
We are excited to have TLA president Gretchen Hoffman as our
Convocation speaker.

January 21, 2006 - Alumni Happy Hour will be held during ALA in San
Antonio from 4:30-6:30 p.m. at Rosario's, 910 S Alamo Street, (210)
223-1806. Stop by and visit with the dean and faculty and congratulate
Dr. Loriene Roy on her candidacy for the 2007-2008 ALA
presidency. Cash bar only.

April 27, 2006 - The annual TLA Alumni Dinner will be from 4:30 to
6:30 p.m. The restaurant will be announced at a later date. You can
sign up for the dinner when you register for the conference with TLA.



- Supporting the iSchool

Gifts to the School enable us to provide more than 20 named
scholarships each year as well as to support student activities in
specialist areas such as archives, preservation, and services to
indigenous communities. Endowments can also create professorships or
teaching fellowships to attract the very best faculty to our
School. Excellence funds allow us to innovate and react to changing
needs. Such gifts significantly enhance the ability of our school to
educate professionals for careers that make a significant difference
for all of society, both now and in the future. All gifts are
welcomed, but we currently have special needs in the following funds
which require additional donations before they will yield support:

Julie Hallmark Endowed Graduate Fellowship
Named in honor of recently retired faculty member Dr. Julie Hallmark,
this endowed fund needs to reach $50,000 to be established to provide
support for students in the area of special librarianship. It
currently stands at $16,000.

Harold Billings Graduate Fellowship
Named in honor of Harold Billings, former director of libraries at
UT. This fund will be used to provide support for graduate students
selected on the basis of academic excellence. This fund needs less
than $2,000 to be established.

To make a gift online, see
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/development/ 
Be sure to specify School of Information in the relevant box and to
name the general area or fellowship you would like to support. Every
gift really helps. We thank you for your generous support.



- Contact Us

If you know someone who has graduated from our program and is not
receiving this electronic newsletter, please forward a copy and point
them to the subscription page on our site at
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/mailman/listinfo/alums

Moving? Need to update your alumni records? An "Information for
Alumni" page has been set up with various links to help make it
convenient for you to make changes. Go to
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/people/alumni.php to learn more.

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