For Immediate Release December 16, 2005

For More Information Contact: Daniel Callison, 317-278-2376 callison@iupui.edu

SLIS Professor to Receive the ALISE National Teaching Award

INDIANAPOLIS - Jean Preer, Associate Professor in the Indiana University School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) at IUPUI, has been chosen to receive the Teaching Excellence Award from the Association for Library and Information Science (ALISE).

Preer will receive the award at the ALISE national conference in San Antonio in January. She joins a select group of fourteen other professors who have received the award over the past two decades. Traditionally, only one national award is granted annually. Founded in 1915, ALISE is the association for educators from major library science graduate education programs, most of which are accredited by the American Library Association (ALA), in the United States and Canada.

Preer teaches in the areas of collection management, professional perspectives on librarianship, and library philanthropy fund-raising. She is the principal advisor for dual degree programs between SLIS and Law, and SLIS and Philanthropic Studies at IUPUI.

In nominating Preer for the ALISE award, Daniel Callison, Executive Associate Dean for the Indianapolis SLIS program, noted that Preer was one of the first full-time faculty members to join the new SLIS program at Indianapolis. The master's program has more than doubled from 38 degrees awarded in 2000 to 119 in 2005. Letters came from previous students now serving in professional positions in public and academic libraries across Indiana, as well as former students now employed is government and public institutions such as the National Center for Educational Statistics, the Library of Congress, and the Enoch Pratt Free Library of Baltimore. Testimony documented a sustained record of quality teaching and mentoring, especially inspiring a high level of professionalism. Preer also has an established record in curriculum development and use of innovative teaching methods that include application of technologies for interactive instructional television.

Preer is the fourth person affiliated with the SLIS program at Indianapolis to receive a national award over the past ten months. Earlier this year Associate Professor Marilyn Irwin won the National Service Award from the Association of Specialized and Cooperative Library Agencies.  Professor Kenneth D. Crews, of the IU Law School - Indianapolis, won the Patterson Copyright Award from the American Library Association. John McDonald, who recently graduated with a master of library science from IUPUI, won the Henne Award for national school media specialist of 2005.

In addition to receiving the Excellence in Teaching Award, Preer will present a juried paper at ALISE. Her paper will review the professional voices for outreach and advocacy in the library profession since the 1920s, and discuss those who have provided the identity and image of quality service amidst cycles of social and technological change. Contrary to the "popular image", librarians have enthusiastically greeted new technologies, employing new communications devices to promote and expand library service in order to address community needs and diverse patron audiences. Frequently such community service has been ground-breaking and pioneering in expanding educational, cultural and information services to all age and ability levels as well as diverse social-economic groups.

Rachel Applegate, Assistant Professor, will present on the practices of regional and professional accreditation standards in graduate library and information science programs. She will review methods for determining student learning outcomes and demonstrate the potential for a course-embedded portfolio approach to documenting such outcomes. Applegate is currently an investigator for development of an online instructional series in outcomes-based evaluation. The modules are being designed by Annette Lamb, professor for online services at SLIS. The project is funded by the United States Institute for Museum and Library Services.  The principal investigator is Elizabeth Kryder-Reid, Director of Museum Studies at IUPUI.  

Mary Alice Ball and Katherine Schilling, Assistant Professors, will present on the integration of service learning in library and information science education. Specifically, they will outline successful methods that have increased the role of SLIS students as civic leaders based on team projects in library automation. Technology management and digital collections have been implemented in partnership with several academic and public libraries in central and northern Indiana. Ball teaches library automation and online searching.  Schilling will launch a new online course this Spring in cooperation with Medical Informatics concerning consumer health information.

Callison will present methods for organizing and chairing a committee charged with review of the program presentation by a school seeking accreditation from the American Library Association. His recent responsibilities have included Chair of the reviews at Long Island University and the University of Alabama. Preer will Chair the accreditation review at the University of Pittsburgh this Spring. The SLIS Indianapolis program, in conjunction with the library science program at IU Bloomington, was re-accredited by ALA earlier this year. IU Bloomington was also re-accredited for the master of information science.

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