- Published: 3/17/2008
Alumna Beverly Cleary ( '39) has been selected as the next recipient of the University of Washington’s Alumnus Summa Laude Dignatus Award. This award recognizes an outstanding alumnus or alumna for a lifetime of achievement. It is the highest honor that the University of Washington can bestow on a graduate. Past recipients of the award include Nobel and Pulitzer prize winners as well as leaders of government and industry. Since its inception in 1938, 69 alumni who personify the University's tradition of excellence have received this prestigious honor, including Dale Chihuly, Dr. William H. Foege, William Bolcom and 2004 Nobel Prize winner Linda Buck. Mrs. Cleary's son Malcolm will accept the award on his mother's behalf.
The author of Ramona the Brave and Henry Huggins, Mrs. Cleary is one of this century's most popular writers for children. Her books appear in more than 20 countries in 14 languages. Her characters Ramona Quimby and Henry Huggins have delighted children for generations.
Mrs. Cleary earned a degree in librarianship from the University of Washington in 1939 and became a librarian, reading to children at story hours and helping them find books. Placed in a low reading circle when she was in elementary school, Mrs. Cleary empathized with struggling young readers. In her quest to find books that weren't too boring or too thick for these young readers, she was inspired to write her own books. Hers are stories about kids in neighborhoods like the one where she grew up, who have parents and friends and pets and who have exciting and funny things happen to them.
Her books have won many prestigious awards, including the John Newbery Medal and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award.
In 2006, Mrs. Cleary gave a gift to the iSchool create the Beverly Cleary Professorship, which was established in her honor to support research and service in the field of children’s and youth library services.
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- Published: 3/13/2008
To RSVP, please visit the UW Alumni Association site. On April 4, 2008, Aaron Schmidt will speak as part of the University of Washington Information School’s "Margaret Chisholm Motivate, Inspire, Lead" lecture series on how libraries can use Web 2.0 to engage their communities and create a user-centered institution. Schmidt is well-renowned in the field of librarianship for his work as director of the North Plains Public Library and as author of walkingpaper.org, a technology and usability weblog.
Dr. Margaret Chisholm was an outstanding library educator and former director of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Washington. She served as president of the American Library Association, where her theme was "Motivate, Inspire and Lead." Dr. Chisholm believed in the responsibility and power of librarians and librarianship to do all three. The "Margaret Chisholm Motivate, Inspire and Lead Fund" was established in her honor by her daughters, Nancy Lane and Janice Bonnet, to bring important leaders in the field of library and information science to the School to inspire future generations of librarians.
Schmidt argues the Read/Write web has changed the way information is created and distributed. Schmidt will address the issues of library usability, signage, and Online Public Access Catalogs and will share his sense of the most important issues on which libraries should be working.
"Aaron is one of this terrific breed of young librarians who bring a fresh perspective on what libraries can do and be in the digital age. He's got great ideas and tremendous passion, and I learn something every time I read or hear him," said Joe Janes, associate professor at the iSchool.
Schmidt has presented internationally on the subjects of weblogs, instant messaging, library website usability and other social software applications. Additionally, he consults for individual libraries such as the Washington, D.C. Public Library, helping them integrate social software into their services. He currently writes the column "Living in the Browser" for Internet Reference Services Quarterly and has had articles published in Library Journal, School Library Journal, Library High Tech News and others. In 2005 Schmidt was named a Library Journal "Mover & Shaker." He is a firm believer in libraries being user centered, and thinks they must use the Read/Write web to remain relevant in the 21st century.
Margaret Chisholm Motivate, Inspire, Lead Lecture
with speaker Aaron Schmidt
April 4, 2008
Kane Hall 210
6:00-7:30 pm
To RSVP, please visit the UW Alumni Association site.
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- Published: 3/11/2008
On April 16, 2008, the Institute for Innovation in Information Management (I3M) at the iSchool will host its Spring Symposium. During this event attendees will have the opportunity to hear from I3M sponsors about several of the information management challenges they face and the solutions they have implemented. The Symposium is held each spring and fall to provide a forum for engaging academia and industry in identification of problems and co-creation and solutions in the area of information management. I3M is built around industry-academia partnerships designed to capture the innovative capacity of information management as a competitive tool. Innovative information management calls for building creative solutions for:
- Managing information
- Deploying technology to create, capture, store, organize, retrieve, and apply information
- Enabling people to create and use information efficiently and strategically.
Current I3M partners include Washington Mutual, Parsons Brinckerhoff and BlackRock.
J. Roberto Evaristo will give the keynote speech at the Symposium. Dr. Evaristo currently works with the Knowledge Management Program Office at 3M. Prior to joining 3M in late 2006, he was on the faculty of the Information and Decision Sciences Department at the University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC), where he taught courses in Business Systems Analysis and Design, Project and Program Management, and Management of Distributed Projects. He has researched and consulted extensively for over fifteen years in the United States, Japan, Latin America and Europe.
Dr. Evaristo’s work has focused on the management of distributed projects, with emphasis on developing and implementing solutions designed to improve sharing and transfer of appropriate knowledge. He has published in many outlets such as the Communications of the ACM, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, International Journal of Project Management, International Journal of Emergency Management, Business Horizons, European Management Journal, Human Systems Management, and the Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce.
A tentative agenda can be found at: depts.washington.edu/iiim/agenda.htm.
To register for the event online, please visit depts.washington.edu/iiim/registration.htm.
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- Published: 3/10/2008
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics recently released it projections for the 30 fastest-growing careers during the period spanning 2006-2016. Five jobs in the information technology field—similar to those graduates of the iSchool’s Bachelor of Science in Informatics program may do—were among the top 25 jobs in terms of predicted growth rates. Jobs with the highest projected growth rate in the area of information technology were ranked 25th, 24th, 23rd, 4th and 1st. The Informatics program at the UW Information School develops students’ ability to design, build, manage and secure information systems. The program is divided into three degree concentrations:
Human-Computer Interaction and Design
Information Architecture
Networks and Information Assurance
Informatics students study how people use technology and how to build systems to meet those needs, incorporating human concerns such as privacy and ethics and fields like software development and networks. By considering both the users and uses of technology, students learn to use their knowledge to positively impact their communities and society.
The complete list of the 30 fastest growing occupations published in the 2008-09 Occupational Outlook Handbook is available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics web site.
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- Published: 3/7/2008
Three articles written for iSchool lecturer Cassandra Hartnett's course on government publications were published in the Winter 2007 issue of Documents to the People, a publication of the American Library Association. Documents to the People is produced four times a year and is currently available in print format only. A table of contents for the issue can be found here. The articles, written by four Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) students, were developed as part of MLIS course LIS 526—Government Publications. LIS 526 introduces students to government publications of the United States and their acquisition, organization, and use. Other topics covered in the course include the public's right to know, the Federal Depository Library Program, government influences in our daily lives, and future directions in government information.
The three articles were "History Is Not Partisan: Presidential Records Changes and Responses during the George W. Bush Administration," by Gina M. Strack; "Space Tourism: These Trips Are Out of This World," by Alex Bertea; and "Lost Treasure: The Investigation of Looting at the National Museum of Baghdad during the 2003 U.S. Invasion," by Deborah Bosket and Lorraine Thomas.
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