 The School of Information Sciences at the University
of Pittsburgh is pleased to announce that Patricia A.
Lawton will be joining the School’s faculty as
an Assistant Professor in November of 2006. Professor
Lawton, who earned her PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s
School of Library and Information Studies, will begin
teaching “Organizing Information” (LIS 2001)
in January of 2007. Her PhD research resulted in
a dissertation titled “The Organizational Forms
of Digital Libraries: An Analysis and Framework
for Classifying Personnel and Work Structures of ARL
Member Digital Initiatives.”
Lawton’s teaching interests include cataloging
and classification, organization of information, digital
librarianship, research methods and library management. Her
research interests encompass digital libraries, information
technology and information work, LIS education, syntax
and subject retrieval, and online pedagogy. After
receiving her MLS degree from Indiana University, Lawton
held the position of Visiting Coordinator of Instructional
Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign;
she has also served as an adjunct faculty member at University
of Wisconsin-Madison and Indiana University at South
Bend. She was recognized many times for her
teaching excellence while at UIUC, as she was named to
the University of Illinois’s “List of Teachers
Ranked Excellent by Their Students.”
Lawton’s “Teaching and Learning Online: LEEP’S
Tribal Gleanings” was published as a chapter in
Learning, Culture and Community: Multiple Perspectives
and Practices in Online Education: Research and
Practice (2004). She recently finished an invited
paper for a special issue (December 2006) of Cataloguing
and Classification Quarterly on “Catalogers in
the Metadata World and the Future of Cataloging.” In
January 2006, Lawton was featured at the Association
for Library and Information Science (ALISE) Annual Conference
at San Antonio in January 2006. Her presentation
was on “Proposed Collection Development Plan for
the Metadata Education Research and Information Clearinghouse.” She
also gave a presentation on “Best Practices in
Online Pedagogy for Library and Information Science” at
the ALISE Annual Meeting in 2005.
The School of Information Sciences is pleased to welcome
Professor Lawton to the University of Pittsburgh. “Patricia’s
skills and knowledge of information organizing and indexing
will be most welcome to our faculty and students,” explains
Ronald L. Larsen, Dean of the School. “Her
interest in Digital Libraries is particularly appreciated
as SIS introduces its new specialization in Digital Libraries. Our
program and our students will benefit greatly from Dr.
Lawton’s expertise in these critical areas.” |
