Congratulations to Simmons College GSLIS Assistant Professor Katherine Wisser, who has just been awarded an IMLS Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program Grant in the amount of $123,436 for an Early Career Development project. Using social network analysis, Wisser seeks to explore the connections among some American literary figures as revealed by manuscript finding aids that can be leveraged using the new descriptive standard, "Encoded Archival Context - Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families (EAC-CPF)". The project will result in recommendations for best practices in archival description.
Wisser joined the Simmons GSLIS faculty in 2009. She currently serves as the Co-Director of the Archives/History Dual Degree program and the Director of the Archives Post-Master's Certificate program; she teaches in the areas of Archives, Information Organization, and Metadata. She earned her master's degree in library and information science in 2000, and her Ph.D. in 2009 from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She also holds a master's degree in early American history from the University of New Hampshire. While in North Carolina, Wisser spent five years as the Metadata Coordinator for NC ECHO, a statewide program that encourages and supports use of appropriate metadata by member institutions to ensure online access to cultural heritage information facilitation, workshop instruction and individual institutional consultation. Her full bio can be seen at:
http://www.simmons.edu/gslis/people/faculty/full-time/1792.php. For more information on the Simmons Archives Management concentration, please see
http://www.simmons.edu/gslis/academics/programs/ms/index.php. The IMLS press release can be found at
http://www.imls.gov/news/2011/062111a_list.shtm#MA.