Alumni E-News
The University of Texas at Austin School of Information
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/
Issue 9 - September 2004

Welcome! In this issue:

- Dean's Word
- Fall 2004 New Students
- Two IMLS Grants Awarded 
- iSchool Establishes Kilgarlin Center
- Students Construct Project for New Museum
- New Endowment Established
- Alumni, Faculty, Student News
- Upcoming Events
- Supporting the iSchool
- Contact details


- Dean's Word

Greetings friends, and welcome to the early fall 2004 edition of the
Alumni e-newsletter. As promised in the last issue, there have been
many exciting developments at the school over the summer and you can
read here about new grants and endowments totaling more than $2
million in new funds for our school.  With the new Kilgarlin Center,
we aim to become a national leader in the study of cultural records
preservation while the IMLS grants will help us to shape both new
curricular developments at the cutting-edge of digital librarianship
and to have a long-term impact on library education through the
training of new faculty.

This is also an exciting time for our graduates as new opportunities
and new challenges emerge in the information profession. Our school is
well positioned to take advantage of the situation. It is a pleasure
for me to see so many of our recent graduates doing so well in their
careers and returning to us with opportunities for capstone projects,
internships and other support for students and the program.  Such
connectivity and commitment is vital to us and is so encouraging to
new students when they learn that so many of you are out there, doing
well, and willing to help future professionals. On behalf of all the
faculty and staff here, thank you for this support, and keep it
coming.

Over the next year we will be re-examining our curriculum, moving
forward on our undergraduate offerings, hiring new faculty, and
seeking better space for the school on campus. As always, we will keep
you up to date on these happenings through the e-newsletter, but I am
always happy to hear directly from you if you have ideas about how the
school can advance. Stay connected.


- Fall 2004 New Students

The Fall 2004 semester began with a total enrollment of students. Texas
residents make up 60% of the student body. Students have also joined the
program from all over the United States and represent 33 states.
Excluding Texas, California (15 students) and New York (7 students)
contributed the largest number of out-of-state students.
International students joined the iSchool program coming to Texas from
10 different countries including Argentina, Australia, Bulgaria,
People's Republic of China, German, India, Japan, Malaysia, Korea,
Sweden, and Taiwan.  During the past year students entering the
iSchool master's program have represented some of the highest GRE
scores in the UT Graduate School.


- Two IMLS Grants Awarded

Associate Dean Dr. Mary Lynn Rice-Lively received $627,000 to build
institutional capacity to educate digital librarians, as well as to
recruit new librarians into a technology-centered digitization
curriculum that documents and researches policy and issues related to
digital libraries. During the project, a curriculum will be developed
and evaluated, and a teaching and digitization infrastructure will be
created in collaboration with the UT Libraries. Research and
publications will be initiated to track best practices. By the
conclusion of the program, five master's students and one doctoral
student will have been recruited for specialized careers and/or
research and teaching in the area of digital
libraries.
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/about/news/imls_successes_07132004.php

Dr. Barbara Immroth and Dr. Bill Lukenbill were joint recipients of an
IMLS grant of $380,822 to develop faculty to educate the next
generation of library professionals. The funds are to recruit doctoral
students to prepare for a teaching and research career in public and
school libraries with children and youth. Details on the project can
be found at
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/about/news/imls_grants_09172004.php

- iSchool Establishes Kilgarlin Center 

With a generous gift of $1 million from former Supreme Court of Texas
Justice William Wayne Kilgarlin, the School of Information will
establish the William and Margaret Kilgarlin Center for Preservation
of the Cultural Record. The new center will help establish
preservation research and education on traditional and digital records
at the iSchool. Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa will serve as Director of the
center. Details can be found at
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/about/news/kilgarlin_center_08242004.php


- Students Construct Project for New Museum

The new National Museum of American Indians opened on September 21st
in Washington, D.C. and offers 18 interactive stations featuring
digitization projects with Indian communities. Several former and
current iSchool students helped construct a virtual tour of
exhibits. These students include Amy Stout, Sara Joiner, Scott Adair,
Sebastian Hierl, and Tony Cherian. Students in the fall 2003 and
spring 2004 Information Resources in the Social Sciences and
Information Resources in the Humanities class prepared pathfinders for
clients of the museum's library. See http://www.nmai.si.edu/


- New Endowment Established

Dr. Scott Reeve, a long-serving Advisory Council member and strong
supporter of the School, has with his wife Vickie, just established
another endowment for us with matching funds coming from Shell. The
"Charles A. and Alice C. Reeve Endowed Program Fund" for the School of
Information has been set up to provide permanent support for
innovative studies involving children and young learners. The $25,000
endowment is a tremendous example of how gifts can be used to support
long-term initiatives that advance specific areas of scholarship and
research.  If, by future gifts, the fund reaches the level of an
endowed graduate fellowship, it is Scott and Vickie's wish that the
endowment be redesigned as the Charles A. and Alice C. Reeve Endowed
Graduate Fellowship in the School of Information.

The gift follows an earlier endowment by the Reeves. In 1983 they
endowed the Mary E. Cleveland Centennial Endowed Scholarship in honor
of Scott's grandmother. Since then this scholarship has been awarded
to 21 recipients for whom it made a difference in their ability to
study at UT.


- Alumni News

Sarah Bradley Leighton, a 2003 graduate will be featured in the
October 15 issue of Library Journal. She works at the American
Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

Find out the latest news from alumni at
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/people/alumni_updates_09242004.php 

If you would like to share your information with the more than 500
subscribers to this newsletter, send us a line at
alums@ischool.utexas.edu


- Faculty News

A list of recent publications from faculty can be found at
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/research/publications.php

Dr. Donald G. Davis, Jr. received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Graduate School of
Library and Information Science at a reception at the American Library
Association Annual Conference held in June 2004. He was recognized for
having "made an outstanding contribution to the field of library and
information science."

Dr. Miles Efron has joined the School as an assistant professor. A
complete biography can be found at
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/people/person_details.php?PersonID=57
Miles will teach courses on information access and information retrieval.

Dr. Patricia Galloway spent the summer completing a book of essays on
historiography, tentatively titled Practicing Ethnohistory: Mining the
Archives, Hearing Testimony, Constructing Narratives. It will be
published in 2005 by the University of Nebraska Press.

Dr. Julie Hallmark will retire from the School at the end of the fall
2004 semester. Dr. Hallmark has been teaching since 1969 and has
taught the basic reference course as well as courses on special
libraries and on resources in science and technology. Her long range
plans after retirement include visits to the Torres del Paine and
Tierra del Fuego national parks at the tip of South America.

Dr. E. Glynn Harmon was appointed to be a member of the Governing
Board of the Academy of Oriental Medicine of Austin. He was recently
recognized as one of UT-Austin's top twelve doctoral dissertation
supervisors. His "Dissertation Tips" for doctoral students are listed
on a national web site along with those of the other UT advisors at
http://webspace.utexas.edu/cherwitz/www/ie/disslist.html

Shirley Lukenbill, iSchool Lecturer, was chosen to appear in the PBS film
entitled "Beyond TV", about how PBS services for educators have made a
positive impact on educational practice. Lukenbill was selected because of
her innovative work with children and youth.  The filming took place at
Wooldridge Elementary School and included two fifth grade classes.  The
film is being developed to show to the U.S. Congress, state legislatures,
and other funding agencies as a way to promote the work that PBS does for
teachers.  See http://www.pbs.org/ for future viewing dates.

Dr. Irene Owens was selected as a mentor for the "Tall Texans
Leadership Development Institute" held this summer at the Canyon Oaks
Ranch located near Wimberley, Texas. The Institute provides leadership
training for the Texas Library Association. Dr. Owens intends to use
this experience to help further develop leadership skills in students
here at the School of Information.

Dr. Emilio Zamora is on leave during the fall 2004 semester with a
Faculty Research Assignment Award (FRA) from the UT Office of Graduate
Studies.


- Student News

Students in Dr. Loriene Roy's Library Instruction and Information
Literacy course created a "Native Bridge to WebJunction" website. See:
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~loriene/nativebridge

Master's students Duane Carter and Elizabeth Rush have been selected
as the 2004-2005 ALA Spectrum Scholars.

Maria Esteva, a 2003 graduate and a current doctoral student, taught a
two-month workshop on archival arrangement and description at the
Universidad di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Kelly Loudenslager, second year master's student, was selected as the
UT Student Chapter representative to the American Library Association
Student to Staff Program.

Tatiana Nikolova-Houston, doctoral student was awarded a $5000 Maass
Memorial Research Grant from the Manuscript Society for the 2004-2005
year.

Libby Peterek, second year master's student, spent the summer cycling
across North America to Alaska. Libby was one of thirty UT students
who participated in the not-for-profit Texas 4000 for Cancer, a group
dedicated to biking more than 4,000 miles in an effort to raise money
for cancer research. Libby compiled a journal of the trek on her
website at http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~libby/4k

Holly Robertson, master's student, completed a website of her work on
Spanish archival bindings. Her work can be viewed at
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~hollyr/portfolio/spain/archival-bindings/index.html

Robert L. Yazzie, a first year master's student is this year's
Honoring Generations scholarship student. Honoring Generations is
funded through a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum of Library
Services.


- Upcoming Events

Dr. Randolph Bias, chair of the Research and Colloquia has announced
the following fall 2004 iForum presentations, open to all:

September 28	Monica Schraefel (University of Southampton, UK) will
present "Enabling Discovery of Rich Relationships and Making Tea: Two
Stories of Interaction Design and Semantic Web"

October 12	A panel of speakers will discuss the research
life-cycle. Speakers will include representatives of the IRB, a reference
librarian, statistical consulting group, and an IP group.

October 26	Dr. Bill Lukenbill will present "Censorship: How well
do Texas school librarians understand the current laws and court
rulings"

November 16	Dr. Randolph Bias will present "Your Call is important
to us: Minimizing the perceived length of wait times"

The iForums are held in SZB 468 from 3:30 to 5:00PM

October 30-31	The iSchool will have a booth set up for the Texas
Book Festival. If you are planning on attending the festival, please
stop by and chat with our faculty, staff, and students who will be at
the booth.

December 4	Fall Commencement Ceremony will be held in the ACES
(Applied Computational Engineering and Sciences) Building, Room 2.302
at noon.  A reception will be held in the Connector Lobby immediately
following the ceremony.


- 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 ensure that our school can continue 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 are close
to establishment but require additional donations before they will
yield support:

Harold Billings Graduate Fellowship
Named in honor of Harold Billings, former Director of Libraries at UT,
who retired in 2003 after 49 years of service to the University and
the library community. This fund will be used to provide support for
graduate students selected on the basis of academic excellence.

Brooke E. Sheldon Professorship
Named in honor of Dr. Brooke E. Sheldon, former dean of the school
from 1991 to 1996, and a tireless champion of education in
librarianship, this endowment is designed to provide support for a
faculty member in the areas of management and public libraries.

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.


- Contact Us

The School recently mailed to all alumni a "Please stay in touch"
postcard.  Please let us know if you or your fellow alums did not
receive one - we will be happy to mail you one! You can send your
requests to chansen@ischool.utexas.edu

If you know a fellow colleague who has graduated from our program and
who 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? "Information for
Alumni" page has been set up with various links to help make it
convenient for you.  Please go to
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/people/alumni.php to learn more.





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