Carroll Preston Baber Research Grant recipient named

Contact: Mary Jo Lynch


312-280-4273

ALA News Release


For Immediate Release


April 2001

Carroll Preston Baber Research Grant recipient named

Ruth V. Small, associate professor in the school of information studies at Syracuse University, is the winner of the 2001 American Library Association (ALA) Carroll Preston Baber Research Grant.

The $7,500 grant supports innovative research that could lead to an improvement in library services to a specific group of people. The grant was donated by Eric R. Baber, Newton, Kan., in honor of his father, Carroll Preston Baber, who was library director at Kansas State Teachers College (now Emporia State University) for 27 years. Carroll Preston Baber died in January 1991, leaving ALA an endowment to support the award indefinitely.

The 2001 grant will fund a project entitled "Motivational Aspects of Information Literacy Skills Instruction in Community College Libraries." Research in information literacy skills instruction has largely focused on process or learning outcomes, with little attention paid to the motivational presentation methods that stimulate and encourage curiosity, information-seeking and exploration. The proposed research, building on earlier work by Small at the K-12 level, seeks to identify instructional motivators used by community college librarians that promote students' task engagement and enjoyment of the research process.

"This project has great potential to help college students become information literate," Baber Research Grant Jury Chair Deborah L. Schlesinger said. "Librarians seeking to implement the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, recently formulated by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), will be able to use the results of this research to help students meet those standards."

Ruth V. Small has a doctorate in instructional design, development and evaluation, and a master's in library science in information studies from Syracuse University. She has been on the faculty of the school of information science at Syracuse University since 1989.

Guidelines for the Baber Grant, including a list of previous winners, may be found at ORS awards
website.