July

• July research seminars focus on health
• New Media Horizon Report
• Ashley Freeman retirement
• Carroll wins NCVER grant
• New book by Dr Waseem Afzal
• Prof Given awarded CIHR grant
• Kennan new editor of AARL
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July research seminars focus on health

Recent highlights for the School of Information Studies Research Seminar series have included presentations from two international guest speakers. On 12 July, Dr Cindy Jardine, Associate Professor with the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta presented her research, Youth Voices in Tobacco. The seminar presented a collaborative project undertaken with students from the K'álemì Dene School in the Northwest Territories of Canada to explore adolescent perceptions of smoking through photographs that were taken by the students in their local community. The research resulted in the production of a compelling booklet entitled “Youth Voices on Tobacco” which was distributed to all members of the school and the Yellowknives Dene First Nation communities of N’Dilo and Dettah. Jardine’s seminar was followed on 18 July with a presentation from Dr Sanghee Oh, Assistant Professor in the College of Communication & Information at Florida State University. Dr Oh’s presentation examined the quality of answers provided to Health Answers in social Q&A media as determined by librarians, nurses, and Yahoo!Answers users. This research focuses on the evaluation of the quality of health information in social media. It is expected that the findings from this study will help librarians and nurses to understand how lay people evaluate online health information in social contexts which, in turn, will inform the development of better health information services.

Slides and more information about each of these presentations can be found on the SIS Research page under Research Seminars.

New Media Horizon Report for K-12 education

Judy O'Connell, Courses Director (Teacher Librarianship) represented the education sector in Australia as a member of the Advisory Board of the NMC Horizon Report  2012 K-12 Edition. This annual report is a collaborative research effort between the The New Media Consortia (NMC), the Consortium of School Networking (CoSN), and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). This edition of the NMC Horizon Report series discusses the top emerging technologies, trends, and challenges that the advisory board believes will have a major impact on teaching, learning, and creative inquiry education over the next five years. The NMC Horizon Report  2012 K-12 Edition identifies mobile devices & apps and tablet computing as technologies expected to enter mainstream use in the first horizon of one year or less. Game-based learning and personal learning environments are seen in the second horizon of two to three years; and augmented reality and natural user interfaces emerged in the third horizon of four to five years. The research and analysis contained in the report will help inform K-12 educators' technology strategies over the next five years. Download the report http://www.nmc.org/publications/2012-horizon-report-k12.

Ashley Freeman retires after 25 years at CSU

Dr Ashley Freeman, Director of the Teacher Librarianship programs in the School, has retired after 25 years at CSU. At his farewell dinner, Ashley received a special certificate of appreciation from the Australian School Libraries Association (ASLA), as well as congratulations and gifts (including a Kindle!) from his very grateful colleagues. He will be much missed as a teacher librarianship lecturer, program administrator, and also as chair of the School’s Professional Experience Committee. Ashley has now embarked on some travels, but will remain attached to the School as an Adjunct Senior Lecturer. Judy O’Connell takes over as Courses Director (Teacher Librarianship).

Carroll wins NCVER Grant

Congratulations to Dr Mary Carroll, who has be awarded a $30,000 grant from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) to fund a project investigating the formal and informal use of public libraries by private Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) to support their programme delivery. Anecdotal evidence suggests public libraries in Australia's capital cities are increasingly being asked to cater for the students of many smaller RTOs, which provide little or no information infrastructure or services of their own. To date no research had been undertaken to examine the extent of provision of information infrastructure to students attending private RTOs.

New Book by Dr. Waseem Afzal titled Management of Information Organizations

Summary

Information organizations influence people in many ways. These influences include economic, political, cognitive, and cultural dimensions. To manage and understand their impact at the individual, organizational and societal level, we must uncover conceptual and operational facets of information, management, and information organizations.

Management of Information Organizations presents an overview of information organizations and their intellectual foundations, examining the qualities of management and the role of information professionals within these organizations. A discussion on information is followed by chapters focused on: Organizations; Management; Information organizations; and The role of information managers and information professionals in information organizations.

This book will be a valuable text for the bachelor, postgraduate, and Master Library and Information Science students taking courses in Management of Information Organizations/Agencies.

Key Features

• provides a foundation in core concepts of library and information science
• takes a multi-disciplinary approach
• gives both theoretical and practical perspectives
• explores fundamental issues in information organizations

Prof Given awarded CIHR grant

Congratulations to Professor Lisa Given who has been awarded a Knowledge Synthesis Grant ($50,000) from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Lisa is a principal investigator on the project, entitled "A scoping review of social media in health care," along with Lisa Hartling and Shannon Scott from the University of Alberta, and Terry Klassen from the University of Manitoba.

This scoping review will map a broad body of evidence to determine how social media is being used in health care, specifically in patient populations, and to assess the extent and type of evidence available for future systematic reviews.

Kennan new editor of AARL

Senior Lecturer Mary Anne Kennan has recently been appointed joint editor of Australian Academic and Research Libraries (AARL) with her colleague, Gaby Haddow from Curtin University. Published quarterly, AARL is devoted to all aspects of librarianship and information research in university and college libraries, including the technical and further education sector, and in research libraries of all types.

Gaby and Mary Anne take over the editorship of AARL from the able hands of Dr Bob Pymm, also of SIS. Bob has steered the journal on a strong course attracting high quality research papers from the Australasian region and also encouraging practitioner contributions both which contrbute to the enhancement of the national and international reputation of AARL. Gaby and Mary Anne intend continuing these activities and in addition they plan to encourage contributions from the broader information sector,  such as archives, records, and other research-based information services. The new editors  also hope to develop special sections in the journal, for example, features that  will appeal to newer professionals or have a particular practitioner focus. Another focus will be special editions in topical areas. People interested in coordinating a special edition are invited to contact Mary Anne and Gaby with their ideas.