Summer 2018 Issue

Top Stories

TWU awarded $397,000 federal grant to educate rural librarians

Jeng concludes service as Texas Library Association president

Alexander receives Barnett Service Award

Ward receives S. Janice Kee Continuing Education Award

 

Faculty Accomplishments, 2017-2018

Drs. Kathryn Masten, Carol Perryman, and Will Senn were part of an interdisciplinary research collaboration with TWU librarians, faculty members and graduate students from Business, Nursing, Health Sciences, and Computer Sciences, which culminated in a presentation:

  • Masten, K., Lantz, E., Perryman, C., Demuynck, M-A., Boonme, K. Gardner, D., Fette, C., Evetts, C., Lee, M., Tietze, M., Senn, W. D., Espinoza, A., Zerangue, A., Cox, E., Wang, W., Evans, W., Etzel, M., & Xu, W. (2017, October). Knowledge Management Practices of the Dallas-Fort Worth Schizophrenia Study Team. Presentation at the 13th International Conference on Knowledge Management, Dallas, TX.

Dr. Aaron Elkins served on the American Library Association’s Ready to Code committee to review over 300 grant applications from across the country to design and implement learning activities that foster youth acquisition of computational thinking and/or computer science skills. Dr. Elkins was nominated for the TWU Distinguished Graduate Faculty Award of Excellence in Spring 2018, and he has one recent journal publication: Elkins, A. J. (2018). Mind the gaps: A comparison of Florida school librarians’ job descriptions and the national professional standards for school librarians. School Libraries Worldwide, 24(1).

Dr. Sarah Evans was a reviewer for the FY18 National Leadership Grants for Libraries Program through the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Dr. Evans gave a lecture for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at UNT on “’Kirk and Spock Did What?’ A Brief History of Fanfiction as a Tool for Learning to Write,” on April 16, 2018. She also has a journal publication: Evans, S.A. (2018). Research roundup: Youth activism through community engagement. Young Adult Library Services, 16 (02), 15-17.

Dr. Evans presented a paper at Anthropology Matters!, the 116th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, held in Washington, DC, November 29 to December 3, 2017. The paper was titled “’Teens Live Here’: Public Library Services for Adolescents in an Immigrant Community,” in the session on “Learning, Participation, and Identity among Children and Adolescents (Part 2).”

Dr. Gretchen Hoffman presented as part of a panel on “Expanding Technical Services Education: From Cataloging and Classification to Electronic Resources and Information Infrastructure Development” at the 2018 Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) conference in Denver, CO, on February 8, 2018.

Dr. Ling Hwey Jeng gave a keynote speech at the Public Library Association of North Texas (PLANT) retreat, titled “Managing ourselves for community engagement,” on Friday, October 27, 2017. She also gave a presentation, “Network Professionally, Engage Ethically,” at the National Cheng-Chi University, Institute of Library, Information, and Archival Studies, on May 14, 2018. Dr. Jeng was invited to participate in the IMLS Focus: Positioning Library and Information Science Graduate Programs for 21st Century Practice meeting, in Columbia, SC, on November 7, 2017.

Dr. Kathryn Masten gave a presentation, "An Interdisciplinary Informatics Research Collaboratory as a Socio-Technical Interaction Network," at the 13th Annual Social Informatics Research Symposium in Crystal City, Virginia, on October 28, 2017. She also co-presented with SLIS student Elaine Lantz at the International Conference on Knowledge Management (ICKM 2017) in Fort Worth, TX, on their interdisciplinary informatics research, in a presentation titled, "Understanding Health Services Utilization by Individuals with Schizophrenia,” on October 25, 2017.

Dr. Masten was recognized as a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) in May 2017. In Fall 2017, Dr. Masten received $32,000 in funding from the Tocker Foundation to demonstrate how community informatics can benefit rural libraries.

Dr. Kathryn Masten and Dr. Carol Perryman received funding from TWU's Summer 2017 Research Initiative to support their writing a grant proposal to the National Institute of Mental Health for their project, "An Interdisciplinary Informatics Approach to Address the Health Challenges Faced by Those with Schizophrenia.” Drs. Masten and Perryman also participated in the Women in Data Science @ TWU event on March 5, 2018, and spoke on the panel presentation on Interdisciplinary Informatics Research @ TWU.

Dr. Jennifer Moore was one of the co-authors of a conference presentation: Greene-Taylor, N., Visser, M., Moore, J., & Drouillard, C. (2017). Incorporating computational thinking into library graduate course goals and objectives. Juried Paper presented at the Educators of School Librarians Section (ESLS) of the American Association of School Librarians, at the American Association of School Librarians 18th National Conference and Exhibition, in Phoenix, AZ, November 10, 2017.

Dr. Moore also co-presented with the Google/American Library Association Libraries Ready to Code Phase 2 cohort at the 2018 Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) Annual Conference, in Denver, CO, in a juried panel session, titled “Expanding LIS Youth Services Curriculum to Embed Computational Thinking,” on February 8, 2018.

Dr. Carol Perryman completed a “NLM Georgia Biomedical Informatics Course” on September 10-16, 2017, in Young Harris, GA. This prestigious week-long intensive workshop was sponsored by the National Library of Medicine in partnership with Augusta University. Participants were selected to attend the workshop with all expenses paid by the sponsor. Dr. Carol Perryman is the assessment expert consultant of a newly awarded IMLS grant on Research Training Institute for Health Sciences Librarians: Building Research Capacity and Community Engagement in Health Librarianship, in the amount of $238,989. The Principal Investigator for the grant is Dr. Susan Lessick.

Dr. Perryman was also selected to participate in the 2017-2018 TWU Pioneer Teaching & Learning Academy, a joint initiative of TWU Academic Affairs, the Office of Teaching and Learning with Technology, the Office of Undergraduate Studies & Academic Partnerships, the Graduate School, and the Center for Faculty Excellence. As a mentor, Dr. Perryman was paired with Dr. Mindy Menn of Health Studies. Funds awarded upon completion of the academy support teaching techniques. Dr. Perryman was also awarded an Innovation Grant for Spring 2018 from the Office of Teaching and Learning with Technology and the Center for Faculty Excellence.

Dr. Perryman was appointed as Co-editor of Hypothesis: Journal of the Research Section of MLA. She was also appointed as Associate Editor of Evidence Summaries for Evidence-Based Library and Information Practice, an online journal.

Dr. Will Senn was selected to be a member of the inaugural 2017-2018 cohort for the TWU Center for Faculty Excellence (CFE) and Association of College and University Educators (ACUE) Course in Effective Teaching Practices. This course is designed for higher education faculty and leads to a nationally recognized Certificate in Effective College Instruction endorsed by the American Council on Education (ACE). Dr. Senn was also asked to serve as the Social Media Editor, in addition to being a regular editor, for the journal, Education for Information.

Dr. Senn presented a research poster on “Information Overload's Hidden Impact - The Response To A Rising Tide Of Information” at the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS) annual meeting in Houston, TX, in October 2017. INFORMS is the largest gathering of analytics scholars in the country. Dr. Senn also presented “Information Overload in a Post-Truth, Fake-News, Big Data World” at the 13th International Conference on Knowledge Management, in Dallas, TX, in October 2017.

Dr. Senn was elected to serve on the Advisory Council of the Southwest Decision Sciences Institute (SWDSI) for 2018-2021. Dr. Senn presented as part of a panel on “Parsimonious Measurement of Service Quality in Higher Education” at the 49th annual meeting of the Southwest Decision Sciences Institute, in Albuquerque, NM, March 7-10, 2018; and he also gave an invited presentation for the Doctoral Student Consortium at this event.

Dr. Sylvia Vardell received the Alida Cutts Lifetime Membership Award from the United States Board on Books for Young People at its national conference in Seattle, WA, in October 2017. Dr. Vardell was also selected as the TLA Member of the Month for February on the Texas Library Association website.

Dr. Vardell published the articles: Vardell, S.M. (2017). Editing Bookbird 2009-2011. Bookbird. 55 (4), 93; and, Vardell, S.M. (2017). Poetry Power: Understanding Language, Content, and Culture through Poetry. Language Arts, 94(6): 407-410. Dr. Vardell also published "Going Global with Poetry" in the January 2018 issue of Book Links, a publication of the American Library Association.

Dr. Vardell spoke about poetry for young people at Pennsylvania State University in Abington, PA, on November 14, 2017. She also presented at the annual conference of the National Council of Teachers of English in St. Louis, MO, on November 17, 2017. Dr. Vardell gave an invited presentation “Research & Creativity: Questions and Connections” at Emporia State University, School of Library and Information Management, on April 25.

Dr. Vardell publishes a monthly column for "ReVIEWS+," a collection development resource for School Library Connection. She also co-authors a monthly column for Science and Children. The January issue featured the science-themed poem, "Seeing School" by Kate Coombs, with suggested activities, strategies, and resources provided by Dr. Vardell.

Student News

Shelley Breedlove was the 2nd place winner of the TWU Book-In-Common Graduate Essay contest this year. She was recognized in an award ceremony on the Denton campus on Thursday, April 19, 2018.

Elaine Lantz was awarded a Student Travel fund to give a presentation with Dr. Kathryn Masten on “Understanding Health Services by Individuals with Schizophrenia” at the International Conference on Knowledge Management (ICKM 2017) in Fort Worth, TX, in October 2017.

Ms. Lantz also participated with Dr. Carol Perryman in the “Pioneer Research at the Mall” event.

Two SLIS students won scholarships in 2018 from the Texas Library Association: Shweta Bhaumik Shroff received the TLA Summer School Scholarship of $500. Erica Campos was the winner of the Van Dusen-Kaiser-Halley Scholarship of $1,000.

Autumn Field and Catherine Howington received the 2018 Texas Association of School Librarians Library and Information Science Student Scholarship of $500 each.

Alumni News

Karen Denavit (1999 MLS) is co-editor of the book: Prown, Jules David and Karen E. Denavit, eds. Louis I. Kahn in Conversation: Interviews with John W. Cook and Heinrich Klotz, 1969-70. New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 2015. Ms. Denavit is information analyst at the Yale Center for British Art at Yale University.

Marianne Follis (2012 PhD) was appointed as the Corsicana (TX) Public Library Director in March 2018. She was featured regarding her new position in the Corsicana Daily Sun.

Amanda Mims (2011 MLS) received the 2018 Outstanding Contribution to the TWU Libraries Award.

Mary Travnick (Spring 2018 MLS) published an article, "What's hiding inside horror: The benefits of exposing children to the genre," in School Library Connection, February 2018 issue.

 

 

 

 

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