Drexel University College of Computing & Informatics (CCI) Associate Professor Alexander H. Poole, PhD was nominated for the Lee Dirks Award for Best Paper at iConference 2023, the premier international gathering of information scholars, researchers and professionals.
His paper, titled “’Will the day ever come when we will be judged on our merit and not on our blackness?’ The Black Caucus of the American Library Association and the Long Freedom Struggle in the United States, 1970-1975,” was recognized among the most exceptional research papers presented at the iConference. The paper also earned the 2022 Justin Winsor Library History Essay Award from the Library History Round Table of the American Library Association. View the full paper here.
The nomination noted that Poole’s paper “cogently disagrees with several prevailing historical conclusions such as that desegregation of state library associations was the watershed moment in Black/anti-racist librarianship. It demonstrates excellent historical research technique and builds upon that technique, facilitating a historiographic conversation about the range and type of materials needed to support complicated claims about trends in our professional history."
Poole also presented a paper with Neville Vakharia, PhD, associate professor, Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, titled “Enabling Knowledge Management Practices in Museums: The Benefits of and Barriers to Achieving Public Value.” The paper provides a qualitative case study exploring a new approach to understanding knowledge management in a specific type of information organization: museums. View the full paper here.
Additionally, Erica Shusas, PhD information science '24, Andrea Forte, PhD, CCI professor and information science department head, and Houda Elmimouni, PhD information science ’20, presented a paper titled “What Makes a Technology Privacy Enhancing? Laypersons' and Experts' Descriptions, Uses, and Perceptions of Privacy Enhancing Technologies” at iConference 2023. The paper presents a study analyzing expert versus layperson perceptions of what makes technology privacy-enhancing. View the full paper here.
For more information about the iConference, visit the iSchools.org website.