The Library Research Round Table announces

2007 award recipients

The Library Research Round Table (LRRT) of the American Library Association (ALA) is pleased to announce the 2007 winners of the Ingenta Research Award, the Jesse H. Shera Award for Distinguished Published Research and the Jesse H. Shera Award for the Support of Dissertation Research, which honors work that advances library research.

The Ingenta Research Award, sponsored by Ingenta, Inc., gives the award annually to support research projects about acquisition, use and preservation of digital information. The 2007 recipients are Aaron Shrimplin, John Fink, Susan Hurst and Kevin Messner for “User Attitudes’ Toward E-Books: A Q Methodology Study.” The goal of the proposed research is to understand a user’s perspective motivations, attitudes and perceptions of e-book usage.

The Jesse H. Shera Award for Distinguished Published Research is given to the author(s) of a research article published in English during the calendar year and nominated by any member of LRRT or by editors of research journals in the field of library and information studies. The 2007 recipients are Gary Marchionini, Paul Solomon, Cheryl Davis and Terrell Russell for their work on “Information and Library Science MPACT: A Preliminary Analysis,” Library and Information Science Research, vol. 28, 2006, pp. 580-500. The study investigated the impact of dissertation advising over time and developed metrics, or “mpact” measures, which provide a unique method for assessing faculty contributions.

The Jesse H. Shera Award for the Support of Dissertation Research is given to provide recognition and monetary support for dissertation research employing exemplary research design and methods. The 2007 recipient is Melissa Just, University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education, for “Measuring Medline Searching Skills Acquisition and Retention in Medical Students.”

LRRT was founded in 1968 to contribute toward the extension and improvement of library research by providing public program opportunities for describing and evaluating library research projects and for disseminating their findings. LRRT is dedicated to informing and educating ALA members regarding research techniques and their usefulness in obtaining information. The information must help users reach administrative decisions and solve problems and expand the theoretical base of the field by serving as a forum for discussion and action on issues related to the literature and information needs for the field of library and information science.

For more information on the Library Research Round Table please visit http://www.ala.org/lrrt.

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