Donghua Tao named 2008 Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship award winner

Contact: Megan Griffin
ACRL Program Coordinator
(312) 280-2514
mgriffin@ala.org


For Immediate Release,
February 5, 2008

Donghua Tao named 2008 Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship award winner


CHICAGO - Donghua Tao, graduate student at the University of Missouri - Columbia School of Information Science & Learning Technology (SISLT), has been awarded the 2008 Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship for her proposal, “Using Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) in Understanding Selection and Use of Information Resources: An Information Resource Selection and Use Model.” The fellowship, sponsored by Thomson Scientific, fosters research in academic librarianship by encouraging and supporting dissertation research.

The award of $1,500 and a plaque will be presented at the 2008 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in Anaheim, Calif., during the ACRL President's Program at 1:30 p.m. on Monday, June 30.

“Ms. Tao's proposal is clearly significant to academic librarians, as she is looking at how students intend to use information resources in conjunction with how they actually use those resources,” said Nancy H. Seamans, chair of the selection committee and associate university librarian and director of research and instructional services at the University of Iowa. “To quote from the letter of support from her dissertation advisor and committee chair, Ms. Tao's study has the potential to provide 'needed practical guidance in library staffing and collection development, especially in questions such as how to find appropriate balance between print sources and increasingly prevalent electronic sources of information.'”

Tao received her Bachelor of Medical Science in Medical Library and Information Sciences from the China Medical University in Shenyang, China. She earned her Master of Arts in Library Science with a specialty in Medical Librarianship from the University of Missouri - Columbia SISLT, where she is currently pursuing her Master of Science in Health Informatics and her Ph.D. in Information Science.

ACRL is a division of the American Library Association (ALA), representing 13,000 academic and research librarians and interested individuals. ACRL is the only individual membership organization in North America that develops programs, products and services to meet the unique needs of academic and research librarians. Its initiatives enable the higher education community to understand the role that academic libraries play in the teaching, learning and research environments.