NewsBank/Readex Catharine J. Reynolds Award

About the NewsBank/Readex Catharine J. Reynolds Award
The NewBank/Readex Catharine J. Reynolds Award provides funding for research in the field of documents librarianship, or in a related area that would benefit the individual's performance as a documents librarian or make a contribution to the field. This award, established in 1987, is named for Catharine J. Reynolds, former Head of Government Publications at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Administered by:

Government Documents Round Table (GODORT) logo

2012 Recipient(s)

Helen Sheehy

Head of the Social Sciences Library at the Paterno Library, Pennsylvania State University

 

She has been a government information librarian and active member of GODORT and IFLA for over 20 years. She has presented nationally and internationally and published extensively, particularly in the area of international government information.

Helen’s current research will involve a citation analysis of ten core journals from 1995-2010 in medicine and health sciences to understand the impact of internet access on usage patterns for government information in scholarly scientific publications. The Reynolds award stipend will be used to fund the coding and analysis of citation data. Helen’s study is part of a broader Pennsylvania State University Library study of changing patterns of government information use by scholars in different disciplines. This research is timely given the increased availability of online government information, and will offer a more nuanced view of scholarly communication and the role of government information. It also has potentially significant implications for government information collection and reference practice in academic libraries. Helen will share the results of her study through a journal article and GODORT Occasional Paper.


Kristene Unsworth

Assistant Professor in the iSchool at Drexel, College of Information Science and Technology, Drexel University

 

She has published and presented extensively in the areas of information policy, ethics and e-government.

The purpose of Kris’s research will be to identify the range and frequency of government information related questions being asked through the Internet Public Library’s (IPL2) online reference service. Given the increased reliance on online resources to access government information and the importance of this type of information throughout society and across disciplines, she aims to provide an understanding of how to better incorporate government information education in online reference.

The Reynolds award stipend will be used to fund the transcription recordings of focus groups conducted during the study. The results will then be used to highlight this aspect of library science education, to improve IPL2 training materials and to inform the design of government information courses in Library and Information Science programs.