Michelle Reed wins the 2016 Carroll Preston Baber Research Grant

For Immediate Release
Tue, 03/15/2016

Contact:

Kelsey Henke

Program Officer

Office of Research and Statistics

312-280-4273

khenke@ala.org

CHICAGO — Michelle Reed has been named the 2016 winner of the American Library Association (ALA) Carroll Preston Baber Research Grant for her project entitled “Undergraduates Speak: Our Rights & Access.” The $3,000 grant supports innovative research that could lead to an improvement in library services to any specific group of people.  The award was donated by Eric R. Baber, Newton, Kansas, in honor of his father, who was library director at Kansas State Teachers College (now Emporia State University) for 27 years.  Baber died in January 1991, leaving ALA an endowment to support the award in perpetuity.

The award committee, in its statement about the decision, said, “The proposal, 'Undergraduates Speak: Our Rights & Access,' expands the successful University of Kansas pilot project that was developed to address the omission of undergraduate perspectives in the activities and conversations surrounding scholarly communication.  Through this expansion, the investigators will add data from other institutions to the University of Kansas data – but more importantly – they will create and make openly available the dataset, materials, and findings from their research so others can use these outputs in their environments.  The results of this research have significant potential for directing future intersections of scholarly communication and information literacy, a responsibility that will remain significant in the future and one that should extend beyond academia.”

Guidelines for the Baber Grant, including a list of previous winners, may be found on the ALA website.