May 14, 2004

s.i.s. faculty, student, & alumni news

FACULTY PUBLICATIONS

Associate Professor Ellen G. Detlefsen published "Clinical Research Informationist." Reference Services Review 32.1 (27 Feb. 2004): pp. 26-30. This issue of Reference Services Review was a special theme issue on "Emerging Roles for Health Sciences Librarians."

Associate Professor Ellen G. Detlefsen recently published book reviews in the March and April issues of Library Journal. The titles she reviewed were in the area of consumer health:
        Lucas, A.R. Demystifying Anorexia Nervosa: An Optimistic Guide to Understanding and Healing, Oxford University Press, 2004, 16 pp., and
        Koenig, H.G., Lawson, D.M., with McConnel, M. Faith in the Future: Healthcare, Aging, and the Role of Religion, Templeton Foundation Press, 2004, 224 pp.

FACULTY APPOINTMENTS & PRESENTATIONS

Professor Richard J. Cox delivered the plenary address on the topic of "Exploring Archival Knowledge in
the Twentieth Century" to the Society of Ohio Archivists at Ohio State University on April 16, 2004.
 

On Thursday, April 22, 2004, Associate Professor Ellen G. Detlefsen gave the Sixth Annual Eileen R.
Cunningham lecture at Vanderbilt University. The speech was the kickoff event for the tenth anniversary
of the opening of the Eskind Biomedical Library. The speech was entitled "From Dead Genius to Managing
Knowledge: The Future of Medical Librarianship."
 

Ellen also met with two DLIS alumnae: Nunzia Giuse MD, MLS, who is the Director of the Eskind Library;
and Polly Todd, MLIS, who is a librarian at the Eskind Library. She also met with four newlyaccepted
students who are all staff members at Eskind. One will join the PhD program in LIS, and three
will be joining cohort four of the MLIS FastTrack.

Announcements

The Visual Information Systems Center (VISC) is pleased to announce that the Keystone Alliance,
which it hosts, has received a $1.2 million grant from the Ben Franklin Trust. The Center for National
Preparedness (CNP) at the University of Pittsburgh, which is hosted by VISC, will receive the largest
slice of these funds. In addition to supporting the Center, funds have been allocated to support a first
responder effort and a Homeland Security Digital Library project, a collaboration between VISC and the
Sara Fine Institute. Interested parties should contact Assistant Professor and VISC Director Kenneth
M. Sochats at 412.624.9416.

The Visual Information Systems Center (VISC) is pleased to announce that it was featured in an article in the April 1, 2004, issue of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, entitled ?Atlas of City Schools to Debut Today on the Web.? Through Project VIPER, VISC has produced the Pittsburgh Public Schools Atlas and Data Fact book which will serve as a baseline for our further research. The article may be found at http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04092/294361.stm. The atlas itself is available at http://www.visc.sis.pitt.edu/pps. Interested parties should contact Assistant Professor and VISC Director Kenneth M. Sochats at 412.624.9416.

A 2001 publication by Assistant Professor Peter Brusilovsky, of the Department of Information Science
and Telecommunications, has been named the most viewed article in User-Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction: The Journal of Personalization Research (UMUAI) , a publication of Kluwer Academic Publishers. ?Adaptive Hypermedia? was published in Volume 11, Issues 1-2, pages 87-110 of UMUAI. In turn, according to the Institute for Scientific Information (www.isiknowledge.com), UMUAI is the journal with the highest impact factor (2.524) in the category of ?computer science, cybernetics,? surpassing publications such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Congratulations to Dr. Brusilovsky for this recognition and achievement! More information on the most-viewed articles in UMUAI is available at
www.kluweronline.com/issn/0924-1868.

STUDENT & ALUMNI NEWS

Congratulations to five alumni of the MLIS program on their election to office in the Pittsburgh Regional
Chapter of the Medical Library Association for 2004-2005:
        Chair: Christine Dietrick MLS (MD-Consult/Elsevier)
        Chair Elect/Program Chair: Charles Wessel MLS (Falk Library/Health Sciences Library System, Pitt)
        Treasurer/Membership Chair: David Brennan MLS (Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Library)
        Chapter Council Alternate Representative: Linda Hartman MLS (Falk Library/Health Sciences Library
        System, Pitt)
Congratulations also to MLS alumna Barbara Folb (Health Sciences Library System, Pitt), the outgoing
Chapter Chair.