The Library & Information Technology Association (LITA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), has announced the 2009 winner of the Frederick G. Kilgour Award for Research in Library and Information Technology.
The winner of the 2009 Kilgour Award is William H. Mischo, head of the Grainger Engineering Library and Information Center at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Library. The Award committee chose William Mischo from a strong field of nominated leaders in library and information technology and praised his three-decades-long work on the design of user-centered information retrieval tools and services.
Mischo's efforts to take on the complex challenges of search query formulation using various database syntaxes and the presentation of search results from different sources through a user interface in a manner that is comprehensible to various user audiences; and his translation of user information discovery needs into software programs and new information protocols that have served as models for commercial services and community standards. In addition, Mischo has made significant contributions to the areas of subject access in online catalogs; end-user interface design to enable searching of online abstracting and indexing databases; full-text search and discovery systems and the challenges of publishers and libraries providing access to this content; federated search of multiple full-text repositories; and the use of Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) and OpenURLs as unique methods for identifying journal articles.
The award, which is jointly sponsored by OCLC, is given for research relevant to the development of information technologies, especially work which shows promise of having a positive and substantive impact on any aspect(s) of the publication, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information, or the processes by which information and data is manipulated and managed. The awardee receives $2,000, a citation and an expenses paid trip to the ALA Annual Conference, at which the award is presented.
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