Banned Books Week, iSchool style

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Do you have a favorite banned book? Harry Potter? Green Eggs & Ham? Each year, the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom records hundreds of attempts by individuals and groups to have books removed from library shelves and classrooms. And each year for the past four years, ALA organizes a “Banned Book Virtual Read-Out” as part of Banned Book Week to bring attention to attempts at censorship. People from all walks of life read from their favorite banned books and post their videos online. Five Information School Ph.D. students/candidates organized

Professor Joseph Janes announces candidacy for 2016-17 ALA presidency

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Joseph Janes, associate professor and chair of the MLIS program at the University of Washington Information School, has filed as a petition candidate for the 2016-17 presidency of the American Library Association. Janes has been an ALA member since 1982.  He served on the ALA Committee on Accreditation (2007-11) as well as the ALA Office for Information Technology Policy Advisory Committee (1998-02).  He is an active member of the Library & Information Technology Association (LITA) and the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), both divisions of the ALA.  He was

Susan Dumais wins 2014 Tony Kent Strix award

Friday, September 19, 2014

The International Society for Knowledge Organisation (ISKO) UK, in association with iUKeiG and the British Computer Society Information Retrieval Specialist Group, honored Susan Dumais with this year’s Tony Kent Strix Award. Dumais is an iSchool affiliate faculty, and distinguished scientist and deputy managing director of the Context, Learning, and User Experience for Search (CLUES) Group for Microsoft Research. The award is given in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the field of information retrieval. “It is truly an honor to receive the Tony Kent Strix award

Karine Nahon: Fighting for which future? When Google met WikiLeaks

Thursday, September 18, 2014

In the summer of 2011, in the midst of the Cablegate affair (the leaking of some 250,000 diplomatic cable transmission between the US State Department and American embassies by WikiLeaks), at a time of far-reaching changes in the regimes of Tunisia and Egypt, and while public demonstrations against existing social order swept various places in the world, a meeting was held between WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his associates (Jared Cohen, Director of Google Ideas and previously a member of the State department's policy planning staff; Lisa Shields, VP Communi

Kristine Morrissey awarded $140K National Leadership Grant

Thursday, September 18, 2014

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) announced new grants for 211 museum projects, totaling $25,576,662, through its highly competitive Museums for America and National Leadership Grants for Museums programs.  Kristine Morrissey, iSchool lecturer and director of the Museology Graduate Program was awarded $140,000 for the Let's Talk program. Let's Talk will bring together museum professionals who are engaged in facilitating, evaluating, and studying dialogue programs in STEM and history-based institutions to analyze and synthesize what is known about dialogue program

Mike Crandall awarded $250K National Leadership Grant

Thursday, September 18, 2014

The Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) awarded a National Leadership Grants for Libraries (NLG) to the iSchool. The $250,000 award will advance library and archives practice by addressing challenges in the field and by testing and evaluating innovations. Senior Lecturer Mike Crandall and team will develop an online Linked Data Exploratorium to provide students, professionals, and instructors in the GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) field with structured access to learning resources about Linked Data technology. Learning resources elucidating specific professio

Help Gidget save the animals and clean up a chemical spill!

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Oh no! Gidget’s logic chip was damaged on the way to clean up a chemical spill and save the local animals. Gidget remembers the goals for each of the missions, but needs your help to modify the faulty code to pass the levels. Each level becomes progressively more difficult the closer Gidget gets to the chemical factory, and you will have to combine all the concepts you learn along the way to figure out how to solve all the goals. Gidget is a game specifically designed to help novices learn computer programming concepts through debugging puzzles. Gidget keeps novic

Immigrant & refugee youth use technology to help families & neighbors

Thursday, September 11, 2014

How do youth surface the information needs of others and provide the best information at the right time? How do they search, mix and curate information? How can youth be supported through app co-designing, information services, and policy making? In 2010,  the U.S. Impact Study found that people ages 14 -18 were 2-3 times more likely than other age groups to use library computers on behalf of someone else, especially if they spoke languages other than English at home. This finding confirmed my earlier work and bellowed for a deep dive into understanding youth as information mediaries,

Katie Davis interviewed for Microsoft's trustworthy computing blog

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Kim Sanchez, Microsoft's director of trustworthy computing, recently interviewed Assistant Professor Katie Davis about her book, The App Generation: How Today’s Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World, for the Security Tips & Talk blog.  The University of Washington is the first to have an Information or iSchool focused on youth and technology. Tell us about the school and your students’ focus of study. Our digital youth faculty teaches a range of courses and provides research experiences for undergraduate, masters, and PhD students. We aim to p

SLA-UW student group wins Outstanding Leadership Award

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

The iSchool’s student chapter of the Special Libraries Association (SLA-UW) was honored with a Certificate of Merit for Outstanding Leadership for their initiative and success with the Capstone Networking event held November 5, 2013.  A capstone project is a degree requirement in the Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) program at the University of Washington Information School. Working alone or in teams, students manage the project’s development, tasks, schedules, and deliverables, then coordinate the hand off to the sponsoring organizations. The projects cover such ar

MLIS alumna appointed PCLS executive director

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Georgia Lomax is the new Pierce County Library System executive director. She serves on the University of Washington Information School Advisory Board for the Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) program. Lomax graduated with her MLIS in 1984 and received the school's Distinguished Alumni Award in 2006.  Lomax has served as the library’s deputy director since 2006. Lomax, 55, starts on Nov. 10, 2014. Neel Parikh, the library’s current executive director, retires Nov. 1, after 20 years at the helm. Prior to joining Pierce County, Lomax worked for the King County Libra

San Francisco Zen Center project turns five

Friday, August 8, 2014

First there was the challenge of inventorying 6,000 audio ‘Dharma Talk’ tapes by teachers and distinguished visitors to the San Francisco Zen Center; now students play a game with the community called “name that monk” to figure out who is whom among the more than 1600 photos taken from the 1960’s onward. It all serves to further learning and preserve history. For the past five summers, a group of iSchool master of library and information science students spend four weeks applying what they’ve learned about cataloging and archiving to a real situation amidst the chaos of the Cent

A year later: New resources from the Global Impact Study

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

It’s been just over a year since the iSchool's Technology and Social Change (TASCHA) research group released the Global Impact Study‘s final report, "Connecting people for development: Why public access ICTs matter." TASCHA has been disseminating the findings, participating in discussions about public access and development, and creating various tools and resources based on the study’s findings and data. The resources they developed to help answer the question, “Why do public access ICTs matter for development?" are now available to the public. Their goal in releasing

Can patients make a difference in reducing medical errors?

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Medical errors cause substantial harm and even death among hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. Although this problem has received national attention, very little research has looked at the role patients can play in preventing, detecting, and recovering from these errors. A $2 million grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research Quality will allow iSchool Professor Wanda Pratt, with collaborators and co-investigators Logan Kendall, Eun Kyoung Choe, Dr. Ari Pollack, and Dr. Barry Aaronson, to investigate the information support that hospitalized patients and their caregivers need

Dean Bruce: Eight new faculty among the top minds in the information field, worldwide

Monday, July 28, 2014

I’m delighted to inform you that the iSchool has enjoyed a recent growth spurt, with eight noteworthy additions to our faculty. These hires were mapped out some time ago as part of our strategic plan “iSchool 2015” and demonstrates our ongoing commitment of fulfilling that vision. Many have heard me speak of iSchool “magic,” the positive synergy that arises when individuals embrace their commitment to the school, step up and apply their unique talents as situations call for it, and take joy from working together. This magic is instrumental to an effective professional and intellec