ALEVY590

IST: From Being Funny to Having Fun

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 23:54:00 -0500

You know you're a grad student when...

you have difficulty reading anything that doesn't have footnotes;
the concept of free time makes you disoriented;
weekends spent studying no longer seem weird;
the professor doesn't show up to class and you discuss the readings with your peers anyway;
you wonder if the ACM style allows you to cite talking to yourself as "personal communication"

You know you're an IST Ph.D. student when...

you think about humor in terms of possibilities for creating an information system in support of joke creation and dissemination;
you start thinking whether computers indeed have a "sense of humor";
you start analyzing your own social network and a peer group you belong to.

In case you become even slightly interested in finding out more about what type of student you are or might be, feel free to check this out, a comical article written by an Australian journalist (and once a PhD student) Monica Dux 'Which type of PhD student are you?'.

How to Flourish in the IST?

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 10:18:30 -0500

"To know the road ahead, ask those coming back."

- Chinese proverb

"Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity."

- Louis Pasteur

For me, it's always been very important to remember that my life path may be quite unpredictable and full of unexpected turns and events. Nonetheless, the life journey is the road that has been traveled many times before, and it is a lot smarter to accept a precious gift of shared experience and wisdom. With that said, insightful and reflective musings, written by Alice Dreger and Ronald Azuma, 'survivors' of the graduate school ordeal, were, indeed, extremely helpful besides being a great fun to read. I also found it exceptionally helpful to seek advice from the 'elders', or academic mentors. It's not an easy task to find a good 'match' upon joining the MentorNet, one-on-one e-mentoring program. So, I consider myself lucky to find one, Dr. Cecilia Aragon, a Staff Scientist in the Computational Research Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley, CA).

As we all know by now, the IST Ph.D. program is quite unique and challenging, in part, because of its mission of forging the next generation of scholars with diverse, often opposing backgrounds, and yet united by their common goal of finding better, more progressive ways of merging information, people and technology. As I found out during my somewhat cloudy first semester, it is so easy to loose track of this success-defining goal.

Although I did find it somewhat unexpected, I was ultimately encouraged by Azuma's question related to identifying true personal reasons behind sticking with the program. Why get a Ph.D?
The question made me recall with absolute clarity that I have always craved intellectual challenge and been determined not to allow myself be defeated by empty questions at the end of my professional career like 'what if' and ' if only'.

I can't agree more with Ronald Azuma when he argues that there are some crucially important survival skills for any graduate student such as initiative, creativity, tenacity, discipline and sociability. Talents and high-level intellectual ability may not be as useful after all if they are not supported by those primary social survival skills.

What was the most useful advice? Again, Ronald Azuma came through with the right answer:"Academia is a business, and "graduate student" is a job title." This advice implies that real success in the graduate school comes from victorious completion of a research program and not from diligent maintenance of high GPA. This advice is undeniably practicable for all RAs, including yours truly.

In conclusion, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Alice Dreger, a "no-nonsense" lady, who supplied me with a handful of advices that made the most sense to me:

Create a 'fantasy' CV with detailed plan of action.
Choose a dissertation topic based on its marketability on the future job market, as well as among likely publishers.
Try to avoid "standard academic dis-ease" when approaching deadlines

Clubs at Penn State, Or Building A Social Network For Fun & Professional Development

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 09:22:04 -0500

I feel a bit like an 'odd duck' among the vibrant and amazingly young crowd of my peers, the IST graduate students. I am an 'adult learner', returning to school after many years of working as a practitioner in the world of books, online databases, Internet and endless library patrons, who were always eager to find missing pieces of information in the library.

The first semester of being a graduate student is the time for emotional and academic adjustment, stressful and full of challenges. One of the ways to make life easier during this challenging time is find a social niche where a student could enjoy camaraderie, share common interests, and even have some fun.

With this in mind, I started looking for clubs and organizations on campus that might fit my mental model of a matching social niche. Graduate Women in Science was one of my first picks.

Graduate Women in Science is an inter-disciplinary society of scientists who encourage and support women to enter and achieve success in science. GWIS have a rich history with over 80 years as a professional organization of women in science, and I was somewhat surprised to find out that

it was originally founded as a fraternal organization (Sigma Delta Epsilon) at Penn State in 1936 and is the oldest women's organization at Penn State today.

GWIS offers a variety of activities, including monthly Inside the Scientists Studio program and Brown Bag Discussion series. I have attended Inside the Scientists Studio program on October 16 with Dr. Nadine Smith and Dr. Kristen Fichthorn of the College of Engineering. This interactive interviewing program is roughly based on the format of the Bravo's TV show Inside the Actors Studio. The event is usually held in 301D Life Sciences in late afternoon.
Women of the IST will be represented too, on February 19th 2009. Dr. Eileen Trauth and Dr. Angsana Techatassanasoontorn have been invited, and I can hardly wait to see it happens.

There is another organization on campus that has attracted my attention, the Student Film Organization (SFO). According to the SFO's official constitution, this organization shall serve as a film culture community open to students of all majors, and it will provide forums for film screenings, workshops, speakers,and film festival trips.

Since I have always loved reading books, watching movies, and later discussing them with friends and colleagues, the SFO appears to be a good match. I plan to explore what it has to offer in more details in the future.

Famous Scholar in e-Government Research: Who, What, Why & How?

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:40:06 -0500

What made me decide to choose that one famous scientist over so many other possible choices? To tell you the truth, one of the reasons was this funny feeling of immediate connection, something that other people may call 'special chemistry'. I read about this person and, somewhat childishly, thought that I might want to be a little bit like this person when I "grow up". On a more serious note, I like the breadth of her lifelong interests that span from music to political science and digital government. I also admire her persistence in pursuing challenging dreams, and her extraordinary ability to make them come true.

Who is this famous scholar? Her name is Dr. Jane E. Fountain,
and she holds a double Ph.D. from Yale University in organizational behavior and in political science. Currently, Jane Fountain is a Professor of Political Science and Public Policy, the founder and Director of the National Center for Digital Government at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

The Center has been established with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to help build research and infrastructure for the emerging field of research on technology and governance. Over time, in addition to its active research programs, the Center has sponsored numerous research workshops, seminars, doctoral fellowships and visiting scholars from around the world.

Her research focuses on institutions, global information and communication technologies, and governance. She is one of the leading experts in the world on e-government issues, and that is the area of research that interests me the most.

Dr. Fountain's research was published not only in various social science journals like the National Civic Review, but also in some leading publications in the field of information and computing, such as the Communications of the ACM. Her book, Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change (Brookings Institution Press, 2001), has become the most influential work written by Dr. Fountain so far. In her book, Fountain put forward the "technology enactment theory", which holds that technological possibilities are enacted into technological realities in ways strongly affected by organizational, political and cultural environments.

The book was awarded an Outstanding Academic Title 2002 by Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. In case some of you may not know about it, Choice is the premier source for reviews of academic books, electronic media, and Internet resources published by the American Library Association (ALA). The book has also received an international acclaim and been translated and published in Chinese, Portuguese, and Japanese.

When the book was first published, Jane Fountain was still an associate professor of public policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. At the same time, she was a research member of the Internet Policy Institute and director of Women in the Information Age (WITIA) Project focused on women's involvement in technology. The goal of this Project is to find out if "women are under-represented as users and designers of today's technologies". To this day, Dr. Jane Fountain continues to be a very passionate Project proponent. I suppose that it was her passion and enthusiasm that were instrumental in relocating the Project from Harvard to the Center for Public Policy and Administration at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

In November 2006, in recognition of Dr. Fountain's achievements, she was interviewed by the Center for Knowledge Transfer and Information Technologies as part of the SEKT Project. A video of the interview is available online

My Likely Choices for Publication & Presentation Outlets

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:11:56 -0500

I find it much easier to think of my likely future publication and presentation venues if I consider choices made by contemporary scholars engaged in e-government research. By exploring the Penn State Libraries Databases, such as the ISI Web of Science, IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, as well as some individual scholars websites, I can come up with a number of possibilities. Here are some of my choices.
1. Government Information Quarterly (GIQ) is an international journal of that is published by Elsevier, the world's leading publisher of science and health information.Elsevier takes its name from the original House of Elzevir Dutch family publishing house founded in 1580, although the modern publishing house was founded in 1880.
GIG is a cross-disciplinary and refereed journal and it covers information and telecommunications policy, information management, IT planning and management, e-government practices, policies and issues relevant to all levels of government within the USA and abroad.

2. The Society of Social Implications of Technology (SSIT) of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE) publishes a quarterly journal, IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, and sponsors periodic conferences, The International Symposium on Technology and Society (ISTAS).
This periodical invites feature articles (refereed), special articles, and commentaries on topics within the scope of the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology, in the broad areas of social implications of electrotechnology, history of electrotechnology, and engineering ethics.

3. Communications of the ACM is the flagship monthly publication of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and was first published in 1957. It focuses on the practical implications of advances in IT, and while the magazine's content is subject to peer review, the articles published do often simply summarize research that could have been published someplace else.

Conference participation is extremely important for developing a successful career in academia. As a Ph.D. student, I have numerous conference and/or symposium venues to explore and choose from. Periodical scanning of the professional association websites (e.g., IEEE, ACM) in search of upcoming events may be a useful technique.
One of the conferences that I find particularly interesting in view of my research agenda is an Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research. The last conference was held in Montreal (Canada) in May 2008.
This conference is a forum for presentation and discussion of interdisciplinary digital government research and practice. It is organized by the Digital Government Society of North America (DGSNA) and receives major support from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF).

Academic communities at a glance. Where do I fit in?

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 02:03:35 -0500

Philip Agre, now an Associate Professor of Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, back in 1993 wrote an article for inspiring Ph. D. students about "Networking on the Network". "The principle of articulating commonalities is the secret to getting along with people," was Agre's advice. Agre offered another useful advice about building communities of people "on the basis of openly explored shared interests".

Recently, I've come across a fascinating new book written by a psychologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Keith Sawyer. In Group Genius, Dr. Sawyer shares the empowering results of his acclaimed research and reveals that creativity is always collaborative, even when we are alone.

Thus, driven by academic interests and the desire to tap into the creative power of collaboration, I would always seek out like-minded people around the globe, organized in a variety of social networks. Professional associations could be excellent platforms for building collaborative webs of people with shared research interests, because they all strive to provide an optimal environment for substantive intellectual exchange. I can name a few that fit my "mental model" of professional groups that I would want to be a part of one day. Every single one of them represent an important combination of features that I need to help me construct a bridge between my professional past as a government documents librarian with my future academic life as an information scientist interested in e-government research.

Since 1937, the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) has been the society for information professionals (including librarians) leading the search for new and better theories, techniques, and technologies to improve access to information. The Society provides the perfect forum for individuals who share a common interest in improving the ways society stores, retrieves, analyzes, manages, archives and disseminates information.

There is hardly a better place to find out what's going on in the world of digital government research than Information Technology and Politics, an Organized Section of the American Political Science Association. What I like the most about it is the fact that members receive a free subscription to the professional Journal of Information Technology and Politics (formerly Journal of E-Government), an exciting forum for policymakers, academics and researchers. This new periodical is focusing on the application and practice of e-government in its broadest sense, using information technology to enhance the delivery of public services and information.

I see my future as an academic, and I already have several years of experience in college teaching. I believe that should explain my third choice and curiosity about ALISE, or Association for Library and Information Science Education, a non-profit organization that serves as the intellectual home of university faculty in graduate programs in library and information science in North America since 1915. ALISE is known for ensuring a rigorous, highly competitive process for refereed papers for conference programs and the journal, and well as useful commentary to researchers from reviewers. At the moment, there is an additional attraction such as a special interest group for doctoral students.

On the Topic of Fuzzy Thinking

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 17:05:45 -0500

Making machines think and feel just like humans was a teasing dream for many generations of computer scientists. Various people have said that since artificial intelligence hasn't reached human level by now, it must be impossible. And yet there were others who believed that the goal was achievable if the right path has been chosen.

On October 6, everybody who have gathered in the IST Cybertorium had a chance to witness something quite profound, a scholarly presentation made by a Master, Dr. Lotfi Zadeh.
Dr. Zadeh, the creator of fuzzy logic, passionately argued that the AI challenge could be within our grasp if only different methods were applied to the task. At present, after applying his concept of neurofuzzy and soft computing, it can finally be said that intelligent systems are becoming a reality... close to four decades after AI was born.

Contemplating a Role Model Among Senior Graduate Students

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:14:48 -0500

What is a role model? How would someone go about choosing a role model within the same peer group? If you agree to trust the American Heritage Dictionary definition, a role model is "a person who serves as a model in a particular behavioral or social role for another person to emulate".

So it happened that upon some consideration, I've narrowed my search to just one senior graduate student who was likely to share some of my educational background, have similar research interests and pursue the same hobbies like photography and travel.
Thus I've decided to have closer look at David Saab.
One connection between us is obvious and clear, we share the same academic advisor, Dr. Andrea Tapia. The concept of having similar research interests may be a bit fuzzy at times, so I have decided to adopt a more philosophical view of similarity. In philosophy, according to the Wikipedia interpretation, similarity is defined as sharing properties and characteristic traits. For instance, the sky is similar to the sea because they both share the property of being blue.

David has once mentioned online that his "... research interests focus on the nexus of cognition, culture, and technology. From this broad perspective, I should say that David's research interests are quite similar to mine because I intend to research the connection between political and cultural make-up and successful implementation of e-government initiatives in different parts of the world.

David Saab expects to graduate in 2009. After many months of hard work, vigorous research and writing, David had a momentous day in his academic life, June 12, 2008. That was the day when he successfully defended the dissertation proposal which dealt with the ontology of tags and folksonomies. In his own words, David Saab tries to understand "information system ontologies as emergent cultural schemas through the manifestations of folksonomies and the use of tags". My sincere congratulations, David! And good luck with the dissertation defense.

David is very active in achieving his academic goals. He writes papers for domestic and international conferences in the USA, Canada and Germany, effectively participates in local workshops held at the University Park campus. According to his CV, David currently has five papers in progress on topics ranging from scenario-based ontology development to study of international NGOs engaged in Humanitarian Relief efforts.

David's writings are reflective of his various research endeavors, and some of them are similar to mine. For instance, we both work as Research Assistants in Dr. Hall's Center for Network-Centric Cognition and Information Fusion.
In 2007, David Saab worked on another project, COHORT, that I have slight connection to.

In conclusion, I would like to mention that earlier this semester I had a chance to listen to David's presentation intended for students in one of my graduate classes, IST501, taught by Dr. Giles. I was deeply impressed by his knowledge and professional demeanor. This presentation was a truly successful attempt at simplifying a highly complex article, What is the Philosophy of Information?" [Metaphilosophy, 2002, 33 (1/2)], written by Luciano Floridi, one of the most influential contemporary thinkers in this new branch of philosophy.

Life in the Ivory Tower

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 22:29:26 -0500

Since I have two academic advisors, I thought it would be only fair to write a brief introductory essay about academic achievements of my second advisor, Dr. Carleen Maitland, who joined the IST faculty in 2002 as an Assistant Professor of Information Sciences and Technology. Dr. Maitland has a significant educational background in engineering and telecommunications. She received her MS in Engineering-Economic Systems in 1995 from the Stanford University (Palo Alto, CA) and Ph.D. from the Delft University of Technology (Nethelands) in 2001 where her research has been focused on the role of institutions in creating the potential for e-business in developing countries.

According to the matrix of Faculty Research Areas, Dr. Maitland has a diverse package of research interests, including Crisis Management and Emergency Response, Globalization, Social Impact and Social Inclusion, and Social Network Analysis. Some of her research projects have been made possible through grants from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), IBM, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the European Commission. Dr. Maitland's findings have been reported in over 30 refereed articles in journals and conference proceedings.

Over the last three years (2006-2008), Dr. Maitland published numerous journal articles, book chapters, and participated in a number of refereed conferences proceedings (e.g., 5th International Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM) Conference in Washington, DC. May 4-7, 2008). Dr. Maitland's CV is available on the IST Faculty Information Page at: http://faculty.ist.psu.edu/maitland/cv.html.

Dr. Maitland and Dr. Tapia have shared research interests, and they are currently collaborating on the COHORT Project, which is sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF). This research should help improve delivery of relief services for disaster survivors and increase efficiency in the use of disaster relief resources.

Dr. Maitland invests a lot of energy in teaching the IST undergrads so that they could benefit from both her life and research experiences, which include scientific investigations in the areas of telecommunications, fixed and mobile Internet access technologies as well as personal experiences of having lived in both Western Europe and sub-Saharan Africa (Malawi).

Here are a couple of courses Dr. Maitland taught in Spring 2004- Spring 2008 that would serve as a good illustration of Dr. Maitland's passion in teaching: IST 442: Information Technology in an International Context, IST 445 H: Globalization Trends and World Issues.

Academic advisors are also humans

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 07:48:43 -0500

According the American Heritage Dictionary, an educator who advises students in academic and personal matters is an academic advisor. Additionally, they may be known as mentors, employers at times, collaborators on research projects, and perhaps even life-long friends. And yet it may come as a surprise to some of us to find data in support of the hypothesis that academic advisors are also humans, just like you and I.

I am very pleased to introduce all of you, dear fellow students, to my academic advisor, Dr. Andrea Tapia, a young, affable and yet ambitious scholar with an impressive portfolio of accomplishments behind her belt that opens with her becoming a Community Ambassador to Spain in 1986 and continues to her winning a prestigious Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Arizona in 2000-2001.

I had a chance to interview Dr. Tapia in her office just a couple days ago, when she managed to carve a chunk of time out of her extremely busy schedule. That is one of the things I admire about my advisor: her apparent ability to manage time. This ability now appears to me even more astounding once I discovered some previously unknown facts about her life beyond academia.

As I found out, Dr. Tapia is happily married to Ron Tapia and has two adorable little boys: one is only 6 and a half, and the other one is 3 and a half years old. There is also a couple of semi-retired New-Mexican cats in the Tapia's household, Dis and Dose (10 and 8 years old respectively). These cats are the only members of the Tapia family who can afford long hours of relaxation and undisturbed sleep. But even cats, in rare moments of exploding energy, get into the family spirit of hunt, hard work and adventure.

Ronald Tapia is a mathematician and is currently working in the Applied Research Lab (ARL) as a computer scientist, thus representing the hard sciences' side of the family, while Dr. Tapia brings in an interdisciplinary flavor of the IST, although it's mostly rooted in social sciences and humanities (e.g., cultural anthropology, sociology, and language arts).

Dr. Tapia's ancestry represents a fascinating mix of different European ethnic origins. Andrea's maternal great-grandparents came from Poland, but her paternal ancestors used live in Spain, Italy, and, perhaps, even Greece. Dr. Tapia's maiden name was Hoplight (retained to this day as a middle name). If spelled a bit differently, hoplite, it could have explained the missing Greek branch in her ancestral family tree. And it brings back to life some fascinating stories about Ancient Greece and Spartans.

Andrea Tapia was born and raised in the Empire State of New York, in the Buffalo area, near the world famous Niagara Falls. From early childhood, she was plunged into the world of books, languages, and rich ethnic traditions. I suppose, it was no wonder when young Andrea, the proud recipient of the Presidential Scholarship, has decided to design her own undergraduate major at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Potsdam by bundling up all her academic passions: modern languages, political science and cultural anthropology. She successfully studied several languages including Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, French and Greek. English is clearly Dr. Tapia's first language, but at the same time, Spanish comes in as a very close second. Here is an interesting tidbit of information: Andrea's mother not only liked Spanish language, she has also been teaching Spanish on the HS level for nearly 30 years, on top of it, she has been very successful in infusing her young daughter with love of languages and reading.

During the interview, I was curious to find out about Dr. Tapia's connections to the State of New Mexico. And, as I found out later, there was an interesting story of friendship and adventure behind. Andrea and a group of her friends the Potsdam College have decided to travel cross-country for two months, after getting their BA degrees, and it's just so happened that New Mexico has immediately won Andrea's life-long affection.
On the other hand, it was quite serendipitous that the state had one of the best graduate programs in sociology in the country at the University of New Mexico (Albuquerque, NM), and, at the same time, it's where the Tapia family has lived for the last 500 hundred years.
As we all know, several years later Andrea Hoplight has become Dr. Andrea Tapia.

Although Dr. Tapia is describing her life at present as mostly "all work and all kids", there is still some time left for fun (maybe about 10%). Fun is primarily reading science fiction and fantasy books. Neil Gaiman, Diana Gabaldon, John R.R. Tolkien, C.J Cherryh are among her favorite authors. Costuming (Middle Ages in particular) is yet another fun activity that requires a great deal of creativity.

When I asked Dr. Tapia how she envisioned her life 20-30 years later, and she was convinced that she would be still actively involved in research and teaching, but would spend a lot more time tapping into her internal wells of creativity (e.g., singing, cello playing, writing fiction), and would find enough time to visit her children and travel all over the world. She mentioned that it would be wonderful to be able to spend up to 6 months in a different country every year.

IST: flexibility vs. structure

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:17:39 -0500

At present, the Penn State College of Information Science and Technology (IST) does not have any academic departments for students to choose from, only a set number of subject tracks that are not supposed to be constraining but purely supportive with additional power to gently guide students towards the right academic path. I concur that the track system provide students with unprecedented flexibility in designing their own programs of study, especially if they have sufficient information and advanced understanding of their future career goals. And yet I'll argue that having a flexible system is not always a good idea, since it might be somewhat similar to having too many choices in a retail outlet: you get overwhelmed and indecisive. Flexibility implies maturity which could be quite elusive among students, especially among the undergrads.

As we discussed in class, IST will soon have a BA program in addition to BS. I am not at all certain that given choices to avoid disciplines they know very little about (e.g. Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, or American History and Political Science) those students would be much better off than the ones without any choices. Given the flexible choices students may easily take the path of the least effort, and choose the courses with the least amount of work to do at present, and the least academic value for them in the long run.

I believe in promoting structure when it can benefit the cause, but no structure should be rigid. Certain flexibility is a must to make the structure work. For instance, I like the concept of having mandatory core classes in the IST Ph.D. program; at the same time, I like the built-in element of flexibility when each category of core classes has a pair of alternatives to choose from.

Musings about iSchools

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:58:58 -0500

The iSchools have been slowly emerging on the academic horizon over the last 30 years, and they continue to gain strength and support from IT as well as from their parent disciplines: computer, library and information sciences. At present, no one truly knows what they are, since the iSchool interdisciplinary concept is yet to be fully developed, so that it can be as easily recognizable as a concept of a school of law. Although the University of Michigan was the first one to embrace the new term, it was up to Penn State to launch the brand new School of Information Science and Technology in 1999, and, later, to open its doors to researchers from all over the country for their first ever iconference in September 2005. Thus, the proponents of the i-school movement got their golden chance to ponder and decide on an elusive identity of emerging academic programs.

Let's try to understand whether iSchools are truly different. Perhaps they are because their faculty and students are trying to connect the dots, to bring down the walls between sciences, and encourage personal and scientific curiosity about the great unknown.
It's a well known fact that there are different triangles in the world, including the Bermuda Triangle and now the IST Triangle. It is quite obvious that they are fundamentally different. One can make anything disappear, the other one has a mission in reverse. Every single iSchool is familiar with the IST Triangle, and understands that the triangle is destined to bring things together: people, technology, and information.

Why did I choose an iSchool at Penn State? There are too many reasons to name them all.
The most important one was the idea of using my background connections to the information side of the Triangle ( as a former professional reference librarian), and extend the dotted lines toward often challenging and ever changing technology on one side , and sometimes too demanding but always fascinating people on the other. I am happy to follow the path along these lines.

What is my academic passion?

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 21:14:30 -0500

For me, it's a particularly interesting question. Why after so many years of being a well-trained practitioner in the world of library and information science as well as a college instructor, I have decided to leave the New York City behind in order to go back to school, and become a first-year Ph.D. student at the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology?

I think that it may be somehow explained by my natural curiosity, passion for new knowledge, and an insatiable desire to find new intellectual challenges to meet.

In mid-nineties, I was still working in the Brooklyn Public Library, and I was able to witness firsthand the altering effects of so-called "computer revolution" on behavioral patterns of general public. For a couple of years, librarians all over the country were quite concerned about the issue of professional survival in this brave new computerized world. But then things calmed down a bit, and it has become clear that computers and databases, and endless other computer applications are only as good as the skill sets of their designers and those of the end users on the opposite side. Librarians, on the other hand, soon realized that their role is to become intermediaries between database and website designers and the public at large. Thus, I've become an intermediary, and was working closely with the universe of end users ever since.

Eventually, it dawned on me that it might be quite intriguing to cross over, and get the designers' side of the story. Since I've been concentrating mostly on the Federal Government Information, it appeared logical that my research interests turned to E-government.

At present, I am only at the very beginning of my journey into the fascinating world of academic adventure, so I plan to invest some time into exploring my research options in more details, and then sail off to the distant shores of scientific discoveries.

About the importance of mental stimuli in professional work

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 23:33:32 -0500

It often happens that people reach certain point in their careers when they need to challenge themselves. They may feel that they have to recapture the old excitement, and find new ways to look at the same things they've been doing for too long.

I reached that point in the year 2000. By that time I was working in the Brooklyn Public Library for 7 years as a Government Documents Librarian, and I was getting more and more certain that I was ready to share the knowledge I gained that far.
My lucky stars were twinkling again, and I was able to receive an academic appointment at the Queens College Graduate School of Library and Information Science (CUNY). I have taught courses in social science information and government information. In each course, there were 3 major issues that I had to highlight most explicitly: what information is available out there, how this information is organized, and where to find it.
It proved to be more difficult than I thought initially because I had to organize sometimes disjointed pieces of data in my brain into the structured system of information, infuse it with knowledge of minute details that came from years of professional experience, and perhaps occasionally be able to sprinkle it with bits of wisdom.
Not only I found out that I enjoyed teaching as well as communication with students, I was also able to rekindle my passion in guiding library patrons on their daily great adventure called library research.

In the Spring of 2008, I had an even more challenging and yet exciting chance to teach an online course in Government Information Sources for the San Jose State University School of Library and Information Science.
I am certain that online teaching component would become more and more prominent in the lives of all American students and faculty.

Introduction

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 01:03:16 -0500

Hi, my name is Anna. I was born in Moscow when it was still the capital of the former Soviet Union. My childhood dream was to become a journalist since I always liked to read, write, learn all I could about a variety of things and meet interesting people. But instead I have become a librarian.
I graduated from the Moscow State University of Culture and Arts with a degree (BA) in library science and bibliography, and was quite lucky to be selected to work for one of the largest national libraries in the world, the V.I. Lenin State Library (formerly known as the Rumyantsev Museum, and, at present, as the Russian State Library.
In 1989, I came to the United States as a political refugee. Eventually, I went back to school, and got an MLS from the Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, NY). I became a Government
Information Librarian and worked for the Brooklyn Public Library for over 15 years.

I believe that coming to the IST PSU has been yet another logical step in my quest for data, information and knowledge. Wisdom might be somewhere around the corner, we'll see...

The image below is the 19th-century postcard of the Pashkov House overlooking the Moscow Kremlin. In the 19th century, the Pashkov House used to be a part of the Rumyantsev Museum, but now it houses the manuscript collection of the Russian State Library.

This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.