TALLAHASSEE (April 9, 2012) — On Friday the American Library Association (ALA) New Members Roundtable congratulated The Florida State University ALA Student Chapter as the winner of its 2012 Student Chapter of the Year Award.

The annual award is presented to one of the 57 national chapters in recognition of outstanding contributions to the American Library Association, to the chapter’s school and to the library and information studies profession.

The Florida State University (FSU) chapter was praised by the ALA award committee for “its accomplishments in each of the six categories related to the award.” The committee was “impressed with the chapter’s use of technology to recruit, retain, and communicate with members, especially PhD candidates, and the variety of activities for both local and distance students. The chapter leadership also demonstrated a strong commitment to future growth by drafting a strategic plan to solidify the long-term prosperity of the chapter.”

“We are very proud of our chapter and its officers, who have consistently risen to the challenge of reaching the majority of our students, who are taking their classes online and at a distance,” said Dr. Christie Koontz, the chapter’s faculty advisor. “With the support of our college, our chapter began webcasting its meetings three years ago.”

The Florida State University ALA student chapter is located at its School of Library & Information Studies, one of three school’s comprising the College of Communication & Information, and known for having the university’s largest online program. The School offers its ALA-accredited master’s degree entirely online.

“By consistently engaging our chapter’s local and distance members via our social media outlets and technology, we have fostered a sense of the importance of professional development, the exchange of ideas, social cohesiveness and cooperation with other organizations such as the Beta Phi Mu honor society,” said chapter president, John Hinrichs. “It is a tremendous honor to receive this award on behalf of the distinguished 65-year history of Florida State’s School of Library & Information Studies.”

The FSU-SLIS student chapter will receive a certificate and $1,000 check to help defray travel expenses to the 2012 ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, CA, in June. The FSU-SLIS chapter will be recognized there during an awards reception held by the New Members Roundtable.

“It is truly a wonderful feeling to be recognized for all of the great things that our student members, both past and present, have accomplished,” said Allison George, chapter vice president.

For more information, read the ALA New Members Roundtable release.

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Dr. Jonathan Adams, Associate Professor at the School of Communication, has been invited to participate in the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans’ Families (EBV-F) on the Venture Pitches panel. The Venture Pitches and judging will be held at the Residence Inn on Gaines St. on April 17, 2012 from 12:00pm to 5:00pm.

The Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV) offers cutting edge, experiential training in entrepreneurship and small business management to soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines disabled as a result of their service supporting post-9/11 operations. The intent of the EBV is to open the door to entrepreneurial opportunity and small business ownership by developing competencies in the many steps and activities associated with creating and sustaining an entrepreneurial venture. This is also achieved by helping veterans coordinate their efforts with programs and services for veterans and others with disabilities.

The EBV was first introduced by the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University in 2007. In 2008, the EBV Consortium of Schools was launched as a national partnership with UCLA Anderson School of Management, Florida State University’s College of Business, and Mays Business School at Texas A&M. Each of these world-class business schools offered EBV on their campuses in Summer 2008. Since then, the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University, the University of Connecticut’s School of Business and the E.J. Ourso College of Business at Louisiana State University has joined the EBV Consortium bringing the total to seven world-class institutions.

For more information about the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV), please contact Randy Blass, Director or Ashley Edwards, Managing Director at cvo@cob.fsu.edu.

Dr. Jeanette Castillo, an assistant professor of digital media in the School of Communication, was quoted in an Associated Press story about social media’s role in publicizing the Trayvon Martin shooting. The AP story has been picked up worldwide. A Google search of “Trayvon Martin” and “Jeanette Castillo” yields 25 pages of results, almost all of them links to news sites that published Kyle Hightower’s AP story. A few of the publications that ran the story:

The Telegraph in London;

ABC News

The Huffington Post

The Australian Eye

WFTV.com (Orlando/Daytona Beach/Melbourne, Fl.)

WDRB. com (Louisville, Ky.)

Anchorage Daily News (Anchorage, Alaska)

KTVU.com (San Jose/Oakland, Calif.)

Indianapolis Star (Indianapolis, Ind.)

Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, Wash.)

Tri-City Herald (Kennewick, Pasco and Richland, Wash.)

Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.)

In 2 East Africa (East African regional news site)

Spanx entrepreneur Sara Blakely, a 1993 Communication graduate and member of FSU’s national championship debate team,  is featured on the cover of the March 26, 2012, issue of Forbes magazine. She is the youngest woman to make this year’s list of the world’s billionaires “without help from a husband or an inheritance.” Read the article.

In a 2008 interview in FSU’s Florida State Times magazine, Blakely credited her experiences at FSU, particularly her debate experience, for her business success. Read the article, which was republished with permission on the School of Communication website.

Research articles by two SLIS faculty members and one doctoral graduate are among those in the March 2012 issue (Volume 63, Issue 3) of the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology:

• Dr. Sanghee Oh (Assistant Professor, FSU-SLIS). The characteristics and motivations of health answerers for sharing information, knowledge, and experiences in online environments
• Drs. Melissa Gross (Professor, FSU-SLIS) and Don Latham (Associate Professor, FSU-SLIS). What’s skill got to do with it?: Information literacy skills and self-views of ability among first-year college students
• Dr. Hong Huang (SLIS doctoral graduate, Assistant Professor USF). Citation characterization and impact normalization in bioinformatics journals