Information School News

Congratulations to Syeda Hina Shahid who recently passed her PhD viva subject to minor amendments.   From left: Syeda's supervisor Sheila Webber, Prof Dorothy Williiams, Syeda Hina Shahid and Prof Nigel Ford Syeda's thesis title is 'Exploring Information Literacy (IL) Practices in Primary Schools: A case of Pakistan'.  

We would like to offer our warmest congratulations to our latest cohort of postgraduate students on their recent graduation.   On 15 January 2016 the School held a reception before the ceremony, where our P rize W inners were honoured for their outstanding achievements.    The West Riding Country Library/Annenberg Prize is given for outstanding performance in the field of public librarianship and was awarded to Anya Badock, MA Librarianship. Anya Badock and Dr Briony Birdi The Henry Heaney Memorial Prize is awarded for the best dissertation in the field of academic librarianship, and the winner this year was Lucy Woolhouse a student on the MA Librarianship programme.  Dr Briony Birdi and Lucy Woolhouse The Peak Indicators Prize aims to recognise the achievement of students for their Dissertation within the MSc Data Science programme and was awarded to Justine Nicholls. Andy Ball (Peak Indicators CEO), Justine Nicholls and Professor Peter Bat...

We would like to offer our warmest congratulations to our latest cohort of postgraduate students who are graduating today .     The Graduation Live Stream can be viewed on the University's Graduation Homepage here.

Congratulations to MA Librarianship student Maria Nagle , who has won a sponsored place at the UK's information literacy conference, LILAC http://www.lilacconference.com/WP/awards/student-sponsored-place-at-lilac

MA Librarianship student Lucy Woolhouse has been awarded a free place at the UK Serials Group Conference , which takes place in Glasgow in April. Congratulations to Lucy!

MA Librarianship student Loukia Drosopoulou has won a full bursary from the Music Libraries Trust to attend the IAML(UK and Irl) (The International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres) Annual Study Weekend (ASW). Loukia is already an active member of IAML, as she is Book Reviews editor of its journal Brio and a member of its Conference Committee.

The Information School would like to congratulate  Jess Elmore who has been awarded the 2014 Library and Information Research Group (LIRG) Student Prize for an outstanding research-b ased project. LIRG offers the Student Prize award to promote a greater awareness  among  students of the importance of research and to facilitate the dissemination of the results of outstanding projects.  The prize is awarded to a student who has completed a course leading to a first professional qualification recognised by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) in Library and Information Studies departments.   Jess' MA Librarianship dissertation was entitled  “We don’t go home. We carry on our lives: An exploration of the information literacy experiences of home educating families”.  The awarding committee believed the dissertation  "to be of an extremely high standard as well as having an original focus" which is fan...

Information School PhD student Hua Xiang has been selected for the Google Summer of Code programme 2013. Google Summer of Code is a global program that offers student developers stipends to write code for various open source software projects. This year, Hua’s proposal "Add time series reports for Bloodhound" was submitted to Apache Software Foundation . She will develop enhanced reports functionality for issue tracking system of software development projects.

Laura Williams, graduate of our MA Librarianship programme, has won the SLA Europe Early Career Conference Awards 2013 .  Laura, along with three other winners, will attend the SLA Conference & INFO-EXPO in San Diego in June. Laura is currently working in the media library at ITV as a Media Logistics Co-ordinator responsible for delivering programme content on tape across the organisation for broadcast.

CILIP's MmIT group conference is in Sheffield today... #mmit2013 Several iSchool staff and students have been involved in its organisation... particularly Jen Smith, and current/prospective student helpers: Ben, Despina, Emily, Janine, Penny and Taghreed. 9:30 - registration and morning coffee - Richard Roberts Foyer 10:00 – Introduction and welcome – Chris Sexton, University of Sheffield, Leo Appleton, MmIT - Richard Roberts Auditorium 10:15 -11:00 – Keynote presentation by Karen Blakeman, RBA Information Services “Searching in the cloud” - Richard Roberts Auditorium 11:00 -11.50 – Parallel workshops sessions 1 ·         Gurdish Sandu & Adjoa Boateng (University of East London) “The UEL Library: Entering the Cloud” - Room A84 ·         Lise Robinson (OCLC) “Something good is going to happen” : an overview of developing a cloud based solution” - Room A85 ·    ...

Dr Alex Peng Information School Lecturer Dr Alex Peng has won the University's  SURE 2012 Academic Supervisor of the Year . He received his award at this year's SURE Showcase yesterday. Alex's student Marcus Walton was also one of only three students nominated for the SURE 2012 Student Researcher of the Year.

Rachel Davies We would like to offer our warmest congratulations to our latest cohort of postgraduate students on their recent graduation. Almost 250 postgraduates successfully graduated from the School's single- and dual-honours degree programmes, and now go on to join the thousands of Information School alumni working throughout industry, government, education and other organisations across the world. You can view the Graduation Cermony, which took place in the University's Octagon Centre, on this Gigapixel Image , and if you are a Facebook user, you can find and tag yourself in the photo. The School held a reception after the ceremony, where our prize winners were honoured for their outstanding achievements. Images are copyright Peter A Bath. Please click to enlarge. Penny Dunn Michelle Parker

Two iSchool students have successfully obtained paid work placements with the Sheffield City Council Lifelong Learning, Skills and Communities team . The students will be working one day a week from now until July to support the evaluation of a Community learning trust pilot scheme, one of only 15 in the UK.  The students will be working with the Data Manager to collect and analyse data from adult learners in Sheffield to evaluate the value of community learning, and contribute to defining the "Social Return on Investment" of community learning in Sheffield.

The iSchool congratulates Dr Iain Kewley, a student on the MSc in Health Informatics programme and Chief Clinical Information Officer for the Department of Health on the Isle of Man, on his recent appointment to the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. Iain's award is in recognition of his work with St John Ambulance in the Isle of Man. Iain has been appointed as Knight Commander in the Order of St John. Further details about Iain's award can be found at: https://www.sja.org.uk/sja/counties/isle-of-man/latest-news/historic-change.aspx and at: http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/60119/notices/1574655/sort=newest Well done, Iain!

Anneli Sarkanen, who graduated from the School's MA Librarianship programme in 2005, is the winner of the 2012 Special Libraries Association Europe/LMD Conference Award . The award recognizes outstanding achievement in the information profession amongst those living and working in Europe.  Anneli works as Information Officer at Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP, and  is an active member of the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL), and currently serves as Vice-Chair of their PR & Promotions Committee. Anneli was recommended for the award by a former colleague, who described her as  ‘an excellent ambassador for the information profession in London and the UK’.

iSchool alumnus Chris Rhodes (who works in the Statistical Resource Unit, House of Commons Library, London) is presenting at the IFLA World Library and Information Conference in Helsinki, Findland, today. Together with Maria Cotera and David Percival, he will be talking on: Inspiring future leaders: empowering New Professionals in the UK . Their paper on thieir exciting initiative is at http://conference.ifla.org/sites/default/files/files/papers/wlic2012/95-zubeldia-en.pdf His photo was taken yesterday by Sheila Webber , who is also attending the IFLA conference as a member of the IFLA Information Literacy Section committee .

Congratulations to Ruth Jenkins, student on our MA Librarianship degree, who has been announced as one of the five winners of the SLA Europe Early Career Conference Award (ECCA) 2012 . Ruth is studying with us following a graduate traineeship at the Bodleian Social Science Library at the University of Oxford. Ruth has also worked as a library assistant in a public library and Devon School Library Service. Ruth is co-sponsored by the Business and Finance Division.

Twenty postgraduate students visited the Sheffield Archive for a behind the scenes tour given by Archivist, Kirsten Smith. Original materials were made available for students including the 1296 Market Charter.

Information School researcher, PhD student and MA Librarianship graduate Paula Goodale has been awarded one of just 5 coveted places at the DREaM project launch conference . The conference, organised by the Library and Information Science Research Coalition, takes place at the British Library Conference Centre, London on Tuesday 19th July 2011. The theme of the conference is Out of the Comfort Zone .

Lauren Smith, a graduate of last year's MA Librarianship course, has been identified as a "mover and shaker 2011" on the Library Journal website. It notes that " the "one-woman library-saving machine," campaigned tirelessly throughout 2010 against the closure of libraries in Great Britain ... The actions of this self-described "library campaigner" are a lesson in commitment for the rest of us." http://www.libraryjournal.com/csp/cms/sites/LJ/LJInPrint/MoversAndShakers/profiles2011/moversandshakersSmithL.csp