In department news, new staff were introduced, among them SIS alumna, Aisha White, who graduated from the DLIS with a PhD in December, 2003. She is now working as a research assistant, focusing on writing and publishing original materials/articles, and she is also working in minority recruitment.
In grant-seeking news, many in the SIS faculty have recently obtained awards from the National Science Foundation, the Special Libraries Association, and the National Institute of Health. Upon the announcements of the many interesting research endeavors of our faculty, Leigh Anne Vrabel, the current SCALA chair, extended an open invitation to faculty members to share their research in some type of open forum in the near future.
In committee reports, the digital library issue was also discussed at length, a very “hot-topic” among DLIS students. Dean Larsen gave an overview of his recent professional activities in this area, while the specifics of the new DLIM program were addressed by the faculty at large. After much discussion, it was decided that Profs. Detlefsen, Gracy, and Tomer should work together to solidify all language relating to both the DLIM program and the digital libraries concentration, so that there would be no confusion as to which courses would be available to students.
Finally, Carla Hayden's upcoming visit to campus, which is scheduled for April 2, 2003, was mentioned. Dr. Kimmel stressed that student effort would be crucial in making this visit a success. For more information, please contact Angelle Pryor (adp13@pitt.edu) or Leigh Anne Vrabel (lav5@pitt.edu).
Publication of the
Department of Library & Information
Science
School of Information Science
University of Pittsburgh
135 N. Bellefield Avenue
Pittsburgh , PA 15260
biblio@mail.sis.pitt.edu