[ School of Library; and Information Science; Newsletter; 1997-98; No. 39]

Newsletter is published annually by the School of Library and Information Science, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-1420. Ethel Bloesch, editor. Telephone: 319/335-5707. E-mail: ethel-bloesch@uiowa.edu

INSIDE

David Eichmann Joins Faculty
From the Director
Faculty Notes
New Curriculum
Welcome Deone
Reaching Out
Joyce's Jubilee
Alumni profiles
Alumni notes
Appointment of 1997 Graduates

 

David Eichmann Joins Faculty

[Picture of Dave] The school's newest faculty member is David Eichmann, who was named assistant professor last August. He holds a joint appointment in the UI Department of Computer Science, with all teaching responsibilities in the School of Library and Information Science.

Prior to coming to Iowa, Eichmann was on the faculty at the University of Houston-Clear Lake,where he was chair of the Software Engineering Program and Director of Research for Repository Based Software Engineering, a NASA-funded project.

He was also principal investigator for the Intelligent Web Agents/Houston project, which researches the design and implementation of intelligent, ethical agents for the World Wide Web. The project consists of three interlocking prototypes: a service agent currently configured as a classical Web spider supporting the creation of a full-text index of Web HTML documents; a user agent that shifts the focus for user search to a more personalized and persistent search strategy; and a metadata repository supporting the dynamic generation and retrieval of class/collection schemes for browsing, search and retrieval of information regarding Web artifacts.

Dave came to Iowa at a timely juncture. The school was engaged in a year-long curriculum review, and he provided valuable input in the design of the information science component. When the new curriculum is implemented in fall 1998, he will teach courses in data and knowledge bases, hypertext, and programming. He will team-teach the foundations course, concentrating on theories on the representation and transformation of information and knowledge.

When Dave and his wife Jackie Bickenbach moved here from Houston last August, it was a return home for both of them. Jackie grew up in Independence, Iowa, and Dave in Mason City. Both are graduates of The University of Iowa, and together they hold seven degrees from this institution. Jackie has a B.S. in microbiology, M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in radiation biology, and an M.A. in English (expository writing). Dave's B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees are in computer science. They are avid gardeners and look forward to putting down firm roots on their acre and a half property in Iowa City.

 

From the Director

Dear Friends,

Another exciting year has been completed since our last newsletter. SLIS has many wonderful accomplishments to share with you. But first let me wish each of you a great Spring season. I hope you are achieving all that you seek, with or without the assistance of El Nino.

SLIS now has a brand new M.A.curriculum, which you will find described elsewhere in these pages. It has taken us morethan a year to design it. Many thanks to the students and alumni who contributed to this major effort. The new 1998 student body will gain significantly from this curriculum. SLIS is also very close to building its first electronic classroom. Our plan is to have this important resource ready for Fall 1998. The classroom has been funded by various sources, including the significant contributions made by alumni to our Foundation account. Thank you for supporting this objective. which will enable us to teach such courses as Web Search Engines and Digital Libraries more effectively.

Plans are also underway to offer an undergraduate minor in Information Management. We think it very important to provide this knowledge at an arlier point of a student's academic efforts. The minor will nicely complement most undergraduate majors. SLIS is also evaluating the possibility of offering the master's program over the ICN (Iowa Communications Network) for students at a distance. So you can see that SLIS has been working very hard towards building a stronger future for the school, its students, and alumni. We look forward to yet another productive year.

I hope that you remain in touch with us, and once again I wish you all success in your endeavors.

 

Faculty Notes

Sharon (Shay) Baker, associate professor, is currently revising, with Karen (Nyholm) Wallace, the second edition of The Responsive Public Library Collection. This edition will expand its focus on the psychological costs of library use and include a discussion on the importance of using promotional materials that incorporate excellent aesthetic principles drawn from the areas of the fine, graphic, and computer arts. She is also finishing research on the desire that public library patrons have for labelling that will allow quick,ready identification of high quality and award-winning fiction and nonfiction.

Jean Donham, assistant professor, has a book forthcoming from Neal-Schuman this summer, Enhancing Teaching and Learning: A Leadership Guide for School Library Media Specialists. She co-authored (with Paula Brandt) "A Process for Designing Thematic Units" in Emergency Librarian (September/October 1997) and (with Mary Jo Langhorne "Iowa City Reads" in School Library Journal (May 1997). She presented papers at conferences of the American Association of School Librarians, the Minnesota Educational Media Organization, and the Iowa Educational Media Association. She will be keynote speaker at a teleconference for Swedish school and public librarians. She has served on accreditation teams for North Central Association and the American Library Association. Last spring she received the Outstanding Service Award from the Iowa Educational Media Association.

Carl Orgren, associate professor, chaired an accreditation visiting team for the ALA Committee on Accreditation (COA) in October. He is chair of a taskforce to reexamine COA's accreditation standards used to evaluate Canadian and U.S. schools of library and information science. The taskforce, formed in January 1997, will report its findings to COA in April 1998. The committee will then announce at its Summer 1998 meetings whatever changes are deemed necessary and useful.

Joel Shoemaker, adjunct assistant professor, will assume the presidency of the Young Adult Library Services Association at the conclusion of the ALA annual conference in June. He is past chair of the Best Books for Young Adults Committee. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Iowa Educational Media Association and a contributor to VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates) magazine and School Library Journal.

Padmini Srinivasan, associate professor and director, received a research grant from Rockwell. She is chairing a panel session for ASIS on cross-language information retrieval and will present a paper on cross-language information retrieval (Spanish, French) with MEDLINE at the 1998 ACM SIGIR (Association of Computing Machinery, Special Interest Group in Information Retrieval) conference in Australia in August. She has submitted papers to the annual conference of ASIS and AMIA (American Medical Informatics Association) and is collaborating with colleagues on establishing an interdisciplinary health informatics program at UI.

 

School Unveils New Curriculum

A year-long study, highlighted by intensive faculty-student-alumni retreats, has produced a new curriculum that addresses the educational needs of today's information professionals, while retaining continuity with past commitment to service principles.

The extended time provided by the retreats enabled us to take an indepth look at the profession and our mission. Each retreat was held in a different place; this helped keep the deliberations fresh. After a careful review of the job market, competency lists, other programs,and input from alumni, we identified a new structure that organizes the curriculum into four clusters: foundations/applications; conceptual structures/systems; resources/services; and policy/planning.

Each course in our present curriculum was examined for relevancy in the total scheme; a decision was then made whether to retain, revise, or drop the course. In some cases, a course was reduced in credit or divided into smaller components to provide greater flexibility for students. New courses were proposed that strengthen the information science component of the curriculum. These include Electronic Publishing, Digital Libraries, Hypertext Systems, Java Programming, Global Information Systems, and Informatics and Law. Other new courses include Programming for Youth Services, International Information Networks, Information Policy, and a Capstone course that students will take in their final semester.

Finally, the courses were renumbered to reflect the new structure, and course descriptions were written. The overall length of the new curriculum remains at 36 semester hours of graduate credit. The required core, however, has been reduced from 18 to 13 hours. And because a number of courses are now one or two credits in length, the students gains flexibility in tailoring the program to individual needs. They also gain increased competencies for today's competitive job market.

The new curriculum will take effect in August 1998. For a look at its structure and the course list,see http://www.uiowa.edu/~libsci/curriculum/RC.shtml

 

A Hearty Welcome to Deone Pedersen

The school's new office manager and departmental secretary is Deone Pedersen, who came to us from the Office of Admissions. Like her predecessor Joyce Hartford, Deone has a helpful and encouraging manner toward all who isit or call the school. She remains upbeat and calm even when things get hectic, and she is an excellent problem solver. The SLIS office remains in good hands.

 

Reaching Out

Information Literacy Institute
June 13-17

Fall Credit Courses over the Iowa Communications Network

30th Annual Festival of Books for Young People
Saturday, November 7
Theme: Heritage
Speakers: Gary Soto, author; Joseph Bruchac, storyteller and author;
James Ransome, illustrator

For more information, call Ethel Bloesch toll-free at 1-800-553-IOWA, Ext.5707, or e-mail request to ethel-bloesch@uiowa.edu.

 

Joyce's Jubilee

Seventy students, faculty, and friends of the school met at Kent Park on a sunny Saturday in September to honor Joyce Hartford upon her retirement. Shown here at the table with Joyce are faculty members Shay Baker (left) and Padmini Srinivasan (right) and retired professor Esther Bierbaum (next to Baker), who returned from Florida for the occasion. SLIS students, led by Trish Mileham, planned the event, which included festive balloons, hearty food, convivial reminiscing, the presentation of a memory book of messages from alumni, and perfect weather. In her 26 years as office manager and departmental secretary, Joyce was the heart and institutional memory of the school. She was a source of knowledge and encouragement to the 1400 students who graduated during her tenure.

 

Online Alumni Directory

Over one hundred SLIS grads have added their names to the school's online alumni directory. Each entry contains name, year of graduation, position, and e-mail address. If you'd like to be included, fill out the form you'll find at http://www.uiowa.edu/~libsci/alumnidir/form.shtml.

To view the directory listings, see http://www.uiowa.edu/~libsci/alumnidir/directory.html

 

Alumni Profiles

[Picture of Carin] Library Media Specialist Carin (Weaver) Barwick (SLIS class of 1994)can't believe that she gets paid to do "the most fun, most rewarding job on the planet." After working for a year in Bettendorf, Iowa, Carin became a library media specialist at Northwood Elementary School in West Seneca, New York (a suburb of Buffalo). Her three years at Northwood have been productive ones. The first year saw the barcoding of the library in preparation for automation, the second year saw construction in the media center to put an elevator in the school, and the current year has seen the transformation of the two-floor library into an efficient, automated, fully staffed and welcoming hub of the school. In addition, the library schedule was fine tuned, with time arranged to have half-day blocks available for intensive and/or lengthy research projects. Currently, the media staff and volunteers are working with the sixth-grade art club to create a mural of storybook characters for the wall of the story room.

Carin's influence extends beyond the media center. She is a member of the Seneca District Technology Committee, the chair of Northwood's building technology committee, instructor of staff development classes on implementing technology in the curriculum, a participant in the library media curriculum writing, and a member of the PTA's "Family Reading Night" planning team. In reflecting on her work, Carin notes the great value of her instruction under mentor Dr. Jean Donham: "Daily, I find myself using something that Jean has taught me from my days at U of I."

[Picture of John] From Special Librarian to Business Analyst John Marcus (SLIS class of 1990) views his present position of business analyst as a natural career evolution from special librarianship. His role as a senior market analyst at 3Com Corporation, a data communications equipment manufacturer in Mount Prospect, Illinois, is to gather, collect, and research information that is relevant to the company, and to analyze and interpret the information and communicate its potential impact to the senior executives and marketing and sales management. These executives rely on analyzed information to make informed decisions. Marcus started his career as a special librarian in an investment firm library, where he spent three years doing research for financial analysts and consultants. After that, he moved to a consulting firm, where his reference duties gradually evolved into more of an analyst role. In addition to gathering, collecting, and researching information, he became responsible for analyzing and interpreting it.

In his present position at 3Com, these latter roles are of foremost importance. A high value is placed on the ability to provide meaningful analysis of information. At the same time, Marcus (who is the only market analyst in his company to hold an MLS degree) views his background in business librarianship as an excellent foundation, since research and the ability to judge information sources are also major components of the job.

Marcus is a member of the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals and the Special Libraries Association. Last year he was a co-recipient of SLA's Presidents Award. 

 

Alumni Notes

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IN MEMORIAM

Appointments of 1997 Graduates