Department of Information Science, Tel: +44 (0) 1509 22 3052  Loughborough University

News

June 2010

Congratulations to Professor Paul Sturges, Emeritus Professor of Library Studies, Department of Information Science, Loughborough University, on the award of OBE for services to Libraries in the UK and Overseas in the Queen's Birthday Honours.

The Department of Information Science has been ranked as the top department for studying Librarianship and Information Management in this year's Times Good University Guide, reinforcing its position as one of the country's leading departments. The Times Good University Guide, published in June 2010, is based upon a number of measures of quality including student satisfaction, research quality, entry standards and graduate prospects. The Department is proud of this achievement which is a clear indication of the excellent standard of education provided to our students and the fantastic opportunities available to them.

May 2010

Pictures from the recent successful "Locking in Low Carbon Knowledge" conference co-hosted by Dr Gill Ragsdell (DIS), Dr Jacqui Glass (Civil & Building Engineering) and Dr Jenny Harding (Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering).

DIS postgraduate students win awards: Two DIS postgraduate students were awarded funding to attend the UKSG Annual Conference in Edinburgh in April 2010. The successful students were Esther Nyambi, who is studying on the MSc Information & Knowledge Management programme, and Tamsyn Bayliss, who is on the MSc Information & Library Management programme.
Andrea Ennis, a student on the MSc IKM programme was runner up in the Higher Education Academy Information & Computer Sciences Subject Centre competition. You can read her response to the question ”How does the reality of studying Information Science match your initial expectations?” at http://www.ics.heacademy.ac.uk/student_central/competitions.htm

March 2010

Geoff Walton, wins the Special Libraries Association (SLA) Europe, Information Professional Award 2010. Geoff successfully completed his PhD in the Department of Information Science in 2009. The prize includes an expenses-paid trip to the SLA conference in New Orleans, June 2010. The prize was funded by Dow Jones. Geoff has also been invited to be part of a panel to lead a discussion on the implications of Web 2.0 for the information profession. The discussion will look at common issues for information professionalsl which cut across or span national boundaries.

December 2009

Hartmut Schwamm, a student on the Information and Library Management programme 2007-8, has been awarded the 2009 Library and Information Research Group (LIRG) postgraduate prize for his dissertation ‘An evaluation of marketing orientation in European national libraries.' This innovative work was supervised by Dr. Derek Stephens. The Department is delighted with Hartmut’s award which completes a hat-trick for the Department - this is the third time in a row that a student from the Department of Information Science at Loughborough University has won this award; Hartmut’s success follows that of Jo Bryant and Catherine Parkinson. LIRG is a special interest group of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals that promotes the value of information research and links research with practice.

July 2009

Research students from Information Science visited the British Library on the 28th July.

March 2009

Rachael Lindsay has won the PhD student prize at UKAIS doctoral consortium in Oxford. Her multi-facet research has involved a study at Leicestershire Constabulary into the use of Mobile Data Terminals (MDT's) by officers responding to incidents. Prof Ray Paul's evaluation of her research at UKAIS was that she was without doubt the best PhD student at the conference. More details about Rachael's research can be found on the Departmental web pages.

January 2009

The Emerald Group Publishing Limited have informed the Department that Dr. Michael Norris has been named as a Highly Commended Award winner of the 2008 Emerald/EFMD Outstanding Doctoral Research Award in the Information Science category for his doctoral thesis. These prestigous awards have now been running for four years and attract submissions of an exceptionally high quality from across the globe in all subject areas.

Michael was awarded his Ph.D. in the autumn of 2008 and is continuing to work on a research project in DIS. Charles Oppenheim, Head of Department commented: "This recognition of Dr. Norris' research is richly deserved. His outstanding research explored the topical and contentious issue of whether Open Access journal articles receive more citations than toll access journals, and if so, why. His work demonstrated that the reasons for the increase of citations are complex and cannot be explained away in a simplistic fashion, as some have tried to so."

July 2008

The Department of Information Science is pleased to announce a new postgraduate programme in Information Management and Business Technology to begin in September 2008. Please click for programme details. For application details and further information please contact the programme tutor.

Organisations require hybrid managers to understand the technical and business requirements of the organisation. Based around real industry problems, and consisting of a mixed blend of recently graduated students and experienced employees from industry, the programme will provide students with hybrid managerial knowledge and experience of both information and business technologies.

June 2008

Joanna Bryant, a student on the Information and Library Management programme 2006-7

Joanna Bryant, a student on the Information and Library Management programme 2006-7 has been awarded the 2008 Library and Information Research Group (LIRG) postgraduate prize for her dissertation 'An ethnographic study of user behaviour in Open3 at the Pilkington Library, Loughborough University'. The work was supervised by Professor Graham Matthews and Dr Graham Walton. LIRG is a special interest group of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professions that promotes the value of information research and links research with practice.

May 2008

Victoria Robinson, Publishing with English finalist wins student writing award.

Victoria Robinson, a Publishing with English finalist, has won the Student Writing Award Scheme offered by the Higher Education Academy. The 2008 award gave students studying Information and Computer Sciences the opportunity to express their views on the subject of ""What makes a good lecturer?" . More details on the scheme can be found at http://www.ics.heacademy.ac.uk/student_central/competitions.htm

November 2007

Recent graduate Elizabeth McDonald named as one of the top ten new librarians in England.

The love librarians campaign has named Elizabeth McDonald as one of the most inspiring new librarians for 2007. Elizabeth graduated from the Department of Information Science with a degree in Information and Library Management in 2002. View Elizabeth's entry on love librarians.

September 2007

Catherine Parkinson has been awarded the Library and Information Research Group (LIRG) postgraduate prize for 2007 for her dissertation on Website accessibility statements.

Catherine Parkinson, a student in the Department 2005-6, has been awarded the Library and Information Research Group (LIRG) postgraduate prize for her dissertation "Website accessibility statements: a comparative investigation of local government and high street sector:. The work was supervised by Wendy Olphert.

May 2006

ALLIS award for portals article

At the 2006 AGM of the Association of Librarians and Information Workers in the Social Sciences (ALLIS) at the British Library, Yvonne Hamblin from the Department of Information Science was awarded the prize for ‘the best article of the year award’ for her article on library portals. The criteria was for an article which was topical, informative, well written and inspiring.
Entitled Library Portals Case Studies, the article can be found in the journal ASSIGNation vol.22, 3 pp.26-30 (now ALISS Quarterly).

March 2006

Congratulations to Emma Dalby Bowler (Publishing with English finalist) who has been elected as next year's Editor of the Loughborough Student Union Magazine, LABEL. This is a student union sabbatical post and Emma will be a full member of the LSU Executive Committee for 2006-07.

February 2006

RNIB sponsors accessibility evaluation of library software.

A student, Majid Khan, in the Department of Information Science at Loughborough University has completed an evaluation of Ex-Libris Metalib library software. The impact of Majid's study will mean that independent access to learning for tertiary students who are blind or partially sighted will be enabled and improved.

January 2006

Appointment of Honorary Research Fellow

The Department of Information Science is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr Graham Walton,as an Honorary Research Fellow. Dr. Walton is the Service Development Manager of the University Library. He is a recognised authority in the field of health informatics, and is currently editor of Health Information and Libraries Journal, one of the leading peer-reviewed journals in the field. He also has research and practioner expertise in the delivery of hybrid academic library services. Before coming to Loughborough he was Assistant Director of the Information Management Research Institute at the University of Northumbria. It is expected that Dr.Walton will contribute to research activities in the department.

December 2005

CILIP Branch support for local student

The East Midlands Branch of CILIP have awarded a bursary to Jeremy Silvester, a postgraduate in the Department of Information Science. The Branch Committee offered the bursary as part of their ongoing aim to support regional members of CILIP and to foster a strong working relationship with the local Library and Information education provider at Loughborough University.

Jeremy, who is a part-time postgraduate studying for a qualification in Information and Library Management, lives and works in the East Midlands, and won the bursary through demonstrating his commitment to the work of CILIP and to the library and information profession.

For further information about the activities of the Branch, visit the CILIP web site or contact the Secretary, Yvonne Hamblin. Email: y.c.hamblin@lboro.ac.uk

November 2005

Miggie Pickton, who graduates this December (2005) with an MSc in Information and Library Management from the Department of Information Science at Loughborough has won the Roger K Summitt scholarship for Library and Information Science. The scholarship is awarded in recognition of electronic information proficiency and the recipient must demonstrate outstanding interest or performance in electronic information services. This included a test of knowledge of the Dialog IR system. Miggie has been awarded Euro 5000 to further her professional development. The staff and students in Information Science at Loughborough are delighted for Miggie.

July 2005

The Department is pleased to announce that Professor Charles Oppenheim has been awarded £145,000 funding for a new research project "The Rights and Rewards in Blended Institutional Repositories".

The project is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) under the Digital Repositories Programme. This represents a cooperative venture between the Department of Information Science (DIS), the Engineering Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (engCETL) and the University Library. The two year project aims to establish a single Blended repository to meet the teaching and research needs of this institution. It will address the motivational issues facing depositors of teaching materials with a focus on the associated Rights and Rewards.

 

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