Annie Searle in The Risk Universe: Bank's 'responsibility' without consequences

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

“When does ‘taking full responsibility’ have consequences?” iSchool Lecturer Annie Searle asks in the latest edition of The Risk Universe. In an article in the October 2016 edition, Searle shares her thoughts about recent incidents of misconduct in the financial industry and asks whether institutions will ever clean up practices that take advantage of customers and abuse employees. The article comes after recent revelations that Wells Fargo Bank executives failed to report fraudulent activity that boosted the bank’s sales numbers. “How is it that, after a 2013 Los Angeles

iSchool to move to single, central location in 2018

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

For two decades, the Information School has been on what Dean Harry Bruce calls a “space odyssey.” The end of that journey is finally in sight. The iSchool recently announced it will move to a single, prime location on the University of Washington campus: Schmitz Hall, located just across from Red Square and the Henry Art Gallery at the corner of Campus Parkway and 15th Avenue Northeast. The move is expected to be completed by summer 2018, in time for the 2018-19 school year. “Finding a distinctive space where we can consolidate the school and accomm

Clarita Lefthand-Begay joins faculty, focusing on indigenous knowledge

Friday, October 14, 2016

Clarita Lefthand-Begay is an environmental health scientist who cares deeply about upholding tribal sovereignty and self-determination. She has spent her career working on water-security issues facing tribes. Now, she’s bringing her talent as a researcher and expertise in indigenous knowledge systems to the iSchool as an assistant professor. Lefthand-Begay was hired as part of the school’s Native North American Indigenous Knowledge initiative, which intends to raise the level of discourse about Native American communities’ knowledge while maintaining the

iSchool’s newest faculty reflect excellence and diversity

Friday, October 14, 2016

The University of Washington Information School hired five new faculty members to start fall quarter 2016 who represent a range of disciplines and backgrounds. New Beverly Cleary Endowed Professor in Children and Youth Services Michelle Martin, professor, comes to the iSchool from the University of South Carolina, where she held the Augusta Baker Endowed Chair in Childhood Literacy, a position created to address high illiteracy rates in the state and named for the first African-American in the New York Public Library System administration. Martin is a renowned author, essayist, lecturer,

TASCHA project to study libraries' role in development

Friday, October 14, 2016

The iSchool’s Technology and Social Change Group (TASCHA) has announced a new project highlighting the role of libraries and access to information in achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. The Development and Access to Information project, a partnership with the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), is intended to demonstrate the importance of access to information in achieving progress toward the 17 goals set by the U.N. 2030 agenda, as well as raise awareness of the role libraries play in development. It will track 16 of 169 ta

Data curation expert Nic Weber joins iSchool faculty

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Nic Weber doesn’t have all the answers. But he certainly has the tools to help find the answers to some big, important questions. How do public institutions preserve information? How do they make it open and easy for the public to access? How do they ensure the information is accurate? Weber, until recently a research associate at the Information School, wants to help answer those questions in his new role as an assistant professor. Weber will work on the iSchool’s Future of Libraries initiative. “The future of libraries is a hard, complex, big problem,

When disaster strikes, MLIS student has resources ready

Thursday, September 29, 2016

Search for libraries and disaster preparedness and you’ll get hundreds of articles, which proves Sarah Carnes’ point. “The information and tools are all there; they are hard to access because of how they are packaged. The information is on web pages that are public, they are on multiple sites, but they are not branded in a certain way to let people know about them and made relevant.” Carnes just spent the summer at the National Library of Medicine creating a visual reference and research guide of public resources available for libraries doing disaster planning. She

Distinguished Alumnus Shaun Kane's career took a surprising turn

Monday, September 26, 2016

Shaun Kane didn’t expect to devote his career to studying accessible technology for people with disabilities.    “I’m a person with a disability who works in technology and disability,” he said. “I have to say that I never expected that I would be doing that. If you asked me as a teenager whether I would ever be working in this area, I would have said 'no way.'” Now, Kane, who earned his Ph.D. at the UW Information School in 2011, is well-established in the field and he’s the iSchool’s Distinguished Alumnus for 2016. Kane’s interest in access

$691K grant will support open-data project

Friday, September 23, 2016

The University of Washington Information School announced a 3-year grant for $690,858 to fund the proposal Open Data for Public Good (ODPG): Data Literacy Education for Public Information Professionals, led by Professor Carole Palmer. The grant was awarded through the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.   The project, to be called Open Data Literacy (ODL), aims to close the technical gap between what libraries currently provide their communities and what is available to them through public data and information resources.  T

Bill Howe brings his data expertise to the iSchool, where he belongs

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Bill Howe is a database wonk, adept at finding meaning in a mountain of data and building systems to help others do the same. But he’s also concerned about using and sharing data responsibly, working to ensure that new technology has the broadest possible social impact.  That’s what attracted him to the University of Washington’s eScience Institute, which applies data science techniques to real-world problems across all fields of science and engineering. Colleagues across the UW campus kept telling him the same thing: His people-centered approach to technology a

iSchool publishes white paper on Digital Youth Seattle Think Tank

Thursday, September 15, 2016

Members of the Digital Youth Lab have published a white paper synthesizing current research on youth, digital media, and learning across disciplinary boundaries. This white paper is a direct result of the Digital Youth Seattle Think Tank (DYSTT), hosted by the Information School at the University of Washington in October 2014. With funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the DYSTT brought together approximately 100 leaders in academia, industry, practice, and policy to discuss the current state of research related to youth and technology. The full white paper can be dow

Michelle Martin a crusader for diversity

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Endowed professorships in children’s literature are rare — “10 may be a stretch,” says scholar Michelle H. Martin.  Holding one is a high honor. Now Martin — renowned author, essayist, lecturer, book critic, community literacy activist, and champion of diversity in children’s literature — can put two on her resume. This fall Martin joins the iSchool as the Beverly Cleary Endowed Professor in Children and Youth Services. She has ambitious goals for her new post, but her first job, she says, is simply to listen. “I want to meet with librarians and find out what

Study: Talking to your smartphone is 3X faster than typing

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

For those talking to Siri instead of typing in your question on your mobile, it turns out you've made the right choice. Smartphone speech recognition software is not only three times faster than human typists, it’s also more accurate.  A new study conducted by iSchool Associate Professor Jacob Wobbrock and colleagues at Stanford University and Baidu Inc. put the speech vs. typing competition to the test. They devised an experiment that pitted Baidu’s Deep Speech 2 cloud-based speech recognition software against 32 texters, ages 19 to 32, working the built-in keyboard on a

Anastasia Tucker: Library of Congress Fellow

Monday, August 29, 2016

The Library of Congress (LOC), the world’s largest, all-inclusive library, is known as a dynamic center for scholarly work and connections. Each year, participants in their Junior Fellows Summer Intern Program are able to work with library curators and specialists in various divisions to explore digital initiatives and increase access to the institution’s unparalleled collections and resources. MLIS student Anastasia Tucker was the first intern to work on a project in the Congressional Research Service. She helped analysts develop a report about federal programs and policies addressing

Reference guide aims to bring international books and children together

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

A new, annotated bibliography of international youth literature, co-edited by iSchool Lecturer Annette Goldsmith, Theo Heras, and Susan Corapi, will help teachers, parents and librarians find books from other countries, written or translated into English, to share with kids. “Looking for titles for a display on Norway? Check the geographical listings. Need international titles about bullying? Check the subject index. Want to create a pathfinder of works by award-winning translators? Check the awards section. Intending to visit children’s literature sites during a trip to