Faculty

Awards

The Union for Democratic Communications (UDC) named Associate Professor Deepa Kumar the recipient of the 2016 Dallas Smythe Award. As the award winner, Kumar delivered the UDC conference keynote address, titled "Fighting from the Margins: Neoliberalism, Imperialism and the attack on Academic Freedom," on Sat. Oct. 1 at the conference in Detroit, Michigan.

A paper by doctoral student Xiaofeng Li and Professor Ross Todd was awarded the Anne Clyde Memorial Research Award, which honors “the best paper presented at an IASL conference making a research and/or theoretical contribution to the field of school librarianship.” Li, X., & Todd, R.J. (2016). “’This is the Biggest Place Where You Can Express Your Imagination”’: Information Practices of Middle School Students at a School Library Makerspace.” Research Forum. Proceedings of the 45nd International Conference incorporating the 20th International Forum on Research in School Librarianship. Meiji University, Tokyo Japan, August 22-26.

Assistant Professor Matthew Weber’s article, "Organizational Disruptions and Triggers for Divergent Sensemaking,” published in the International Journal of Business Communication, was awarded Article of the Year by the journal. The article is co-authored by Gail Thomas (Naval Postgraduate Institute) and Kim Stephens (University of Southern California).

Publications

Professor and Director of the Ph.D. Program Marie Radford published a book titled “Library Conversations,” subtitled “Reclaiming Interpersonal Communication Theory for Understanding Professional Encounters.” Radford’s co-author is her husband GaryRadford ‘91 who is a Ph.D. alumnus. The book was published by ALA Neal-Schuman.

Assistant Professor Rebecca Reynolds has published a book: Chu, S., Reynolds, R., Notari, M., Taveres, N., & Lee, C. (2016). "Developing 21st Century Skills through Inquiry Based Learning: From Theory to Practice." Springer Science.

Doctoral Student Xiaofeng Li and Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Library and Information Science Ross Todd published the following:

• Li, X., & Todd, R.J. (2016). “Information Practices of Young People at a Public Library Makerspace – A Sense-Making Approach.” In Proceedings of the Canadian Association of Information Science (CAIS), Calgary, Canada. June 1-3.
• Li, X., & Todd, R.J. (2016). “Information Practices During 3D Modelling in a Public Library Makerspace: Generating Ideas, Seeking Help and Iterative Trial and Error.” In Proceedings of the 2016 Information Seeking in Context – The Information Behaviour Conference (ISIC 2016), Zadar, Croatia. Sept. 20-23.  To be published in Information Research.

Reviews

Associate Professor Vikki Katz's book “Kids in the Middle” was reviewed in the International Journal of Communication.

Conferences and Presentations

Teaching Professor and Director of Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Studies Mary Chaykoco-presented (with Brittney Cooper, assistant professor of Women's and Gender Studies) a workshop on "Public Scholarship and Civic Engagement," at the Institute for Research on Women, Rutgers University, on Oct. 13.

Associate Professor Marya Doerfel gave an invited talk "Mixed Methods and Social Networks: Tools and Techniques for Examining Interorganizational Networks" to the Command, Control, and Interoperability Center for Advanced Data Analysis (CCICADA), in Piscataway, NJ.

Associate Professor Deepa Kumar delivered the lecture “In Search of Monsters to Destroy: Racism, Empire and the Endless War on Terror” on Oct. 5 as part of Harvey Mudd College’s 2016 Dr. Bruce J. Nelson ’74 Distinguished Speaker Series titled “Now! Social Justice and STEM.”

Professor John V. Pavlik presented an invited paper: “The Rise of Virtuality: Experiential Media and the Transformation of Cyberjournalism.” Presented at 7th Congresso International de Cyberjournalismo, Oct. 7, Campo Grande, Brazil.

Assistant Professor Rebecca Reynolds presented the following paper at ASIS&T: Lee, C., Chu, S., Cheng, J. & Reynolds, R. (2016). "Plagiarism-Free Inquiry Project-Based Learning with UPCC Pedagogy." To be included in the Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T), Copenhagen 2016.

Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Library and Information Science Ross Todd presented the following:

• Keynote address:  “School Libraries: Unlocking the Potential Through Inquiry, Innovation and Data.” International Association of School Librarianship 2016 Regional Conference: Latin American and the Caribbean. The University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica, July 12-15.
• With Doctoral Student Xiaofeng Li, (2016). “”We Don’t Get Any Help, What We Do Is Just a Simple Test, Like Trial and Error’: Information Practices of Young People at a Public Library Makerspace.” Presentation at CoLIS 9, Uppsala, Sweden. June 27-29.
• Medina, V G. and Todd, R. J.  “Empowering Students for a Digital World:  Global Concerns, Local School Evidence and Strategic Actions” Research Forum.  Proceedings of the 45nd International Conference incorporating the 20th International Forum on Research in School Librarianship. Meiji University, Tokyo Japan, August 22-26.

Assistant Professor Matthew Weber spoke as an invited panelist on the topic of “Why Save Online News,” at the 2nd Dodging the Memory Hole conference, held at the University of California Los Angeles on Oct. 13 and 14, and supported by the Reynolds Journalism Institute and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Cited in the Media

Associate Professor Vikki Katz’s research, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was cited in the Christian Science Monitor in an article titled “Free Basics: The Best Way to Improve Americans' Internet Access?”

Video

Teaching Professor and Director of Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Programs Mary Chayko produced and voiced an animated video "trailer" for the Gender and Media minor. View the video here.

Students

Ph.D. Candidate Dongho Choi presented two posters at the Annual Meeting of Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) 2016 in Copenhagen, Denmark, October 14-18, with Ph.D. Student Ziad Matni, Associate Professor Chirag Shah and Assistant Professor Vivek Singh:

• Dongho Choi, Ziad Matni, Chirag Shah, "What Social Media Data Should I Use in My Research?: A Comparative Analysis of Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, and The New York Times Comments."
• Dongho Choi, Chirag Shah, Vivek Singh, "Which Team Benefits from Collaboration?: Investigating Collaborative Information Seeking Using Personal and Social Contextual Signals."

Ph.D. Candidate Si Sun presented a full paper co-authored with Distinguished Professor Nicholas J. Belkin at the ASIS&T Conference titled "Managing Personal Information over the Long-term, Or Not? Experiences by Type 1 Diabetes Patients."