Faculty

Dr. Bo Xie	Dr. Jean Dryden
Dr. John Bertot	Dr. Paul Jaeger

Maryland's iSchool is pleased to announce four faculty members were awarded three awards from the Institute of Museum and Library Services' (IMLS) Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program.

Dr. Bo Xie received the Early Career Award for her work with older adults and her project "Meeting Older Adults' Health Information Needs Through Peer Computer Training: An Innovative Public Library". In this Early Career Development project, Dr. Xie will design a public-library-based program to provide high-quality, Internet-based health information to seniors from diverse backgrounds. The incorporation of a cadre of committed, older adult volunteers is key to the project. The volunteers will help design the curriculum and then serve as peer trainers, teaching other older adults how to access, assess, and use a broad range of quality online resources.

Dr. Jean Dryden was awarded the Early Career Award as well for her project entitled: "Putting Archival Holdings Online: Repository Copyright Practices and their Impact on Users". In this Early Career Development project, Dr. Dryden will examine the copyright practices of libraries, archives, and museums in the digitization of their holdings and the impact of these practices upon their users. This research will aid libraries, archives, and museums as they continue to develop best practices that will make their holdings more widely available to the public while still protecting the legitimate interests of rights holders.

Dr. John Bertot and Dr. Paul Jaeger received an award which will enable Maryland's iSchool to expand the e-government concentration, including making the concentration available online. Additionally, in partnership with the University of Illinois at Chicago, the iSchool will leverage its local expertise and expand on its existing concentration in e-government, while creating a community of practice through the Government Information Online initiative. This will help to address challenges presented by changes in the ways governments produce and make information available to the public. IMLS funds will be used to develop online education for the government information concentration. In addition to the coursework, the students will gain practical experience working in the Government Information Online service and opportunities to assist in the production of the scholarly journal Government Information Quarterly.

Maryland's iSchool was also awarded a recruitment grant to support 20 students to earn the government information concentration through online coursework. Scholarship recipients will also benefit from mentoring, directed internships, and opportunities to network with other government information professionals.