New Brunswick, N.J. -- As of January 1, 2012, Dr. Marie L. Radford has been named
the Chair of the Department of Library and Information Science at the School ofCommunication and Information (SC&I) at Rutgers University. Over a
three-year term, Radford will oversee and coordinate the Master of Library and
Information Science program, the undergraduate program in Information
Technology and Informatics, and the LIS area of the school’s doctoral program.
As Chair, Dr. Radford will ensure that all three programs
continue to meet the needs of students and prepare them for careers in a
rapidly evolving profession. Dr. Radford will also mentor and assist faculty in
helping them to achieve their teaching, research, and service goals.
“I’m looking forward to the challenges and opportunities
ahead as Department Chair and especially to working closely with all of the
talented students and exceptional faculty and administrative staff here at
SC&I,” Dr. Radford said.
Dr. Radford has had extensive
administration experience. Prior to coming to Rutgers, she was Acting Dean and
Associate Professor at Pratt Institute, School of Information and Library
Science, in NYC. She has also held managerial positions in an academic library
in New Jersey, and is considered to be a leader in the field of librarianship. She
is highly respected by her peers for her research and as a collaborative
colleague. In 2010, Dr. Radford was awarded the ALA, Reference and User
Services Association’s Isadore Gilbert Mudge Award for “distinguished
contributions to reference librarianship." (See
Dr. Radford serves as
President of Beta Phi Mu National, the library and information studies honor
society, and is chair of the Research Coordinating Committee of the Association
of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). She is the SC&I liaison to the
New Jersey Library Association and the SC&I Alumni Association, and is
faculty adviser to the SC&I Beta Phi Mu Omicron Chapter and the newly
formed SCARLA (Student College, Academic, and Research Libraries Association)
at Rutgers.
Dr. Radford is an
interdisciplinary scholar, with interests in the library and information field
as well as in interpersonal communication and cultural studies. Her research
focus is on interpersonal communication in reference encounters (face-to-face
and in virtual environments), nonverbal communication, media stereotypes of
librarians and libraries, qualitative assessment,, and cultural studies. She is
Co-Principal Investigator of the “Seeking Synchronicity” and “Cyber Synergy”
grant projects funded by IMLS, Rutgers, and OCLC. She gives frequent keynote
speeches and scholarly papers at national and international library and
communication conferences and publishes widely in library journals. Her latest
book: Leading the Reference Renaissance (2012)
is recently published with Neal-Schuman.
A Rutgers University Alumna, Dr.
Radford received her PhD from SC&I in 1993 and holds an MSLS from Syracuse
University and BA from The College of New Jersey. She has taught at Rutgers
since 2004, including courses in Reference Sources & Services, Management
of Libraries and Information Centers, Interpersonal Communication for
Information Professionals, Theories and Issues in Library Studies, Information
& Communication Processes, and Retrieving and Evaluating Electronic
Resources.
For more information, please
visit Prof. Radford’s web site: http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/~mradford/