Congratulations to Brionna Badoni, who has been accepted into the Peer Mentoring Program through the American Indigenous Business and Leadership (AIBL) organization, during the conference held in Las Vegas, NV in March 2024. The AIBL conference is designed to give Indigenous students and professionals access to relevant business information and expertise, offering a variety of activities geared specifically to enhance and expand educational experiences beyond what is taught through traditional academic methods. During the conference, students compete for prizes in business plans, community projects, and elevator pitches, where they are offered leadership roles to gain valuable presentation, organizational, and project management skills and experience.
The Peer Mentoring Program provides training, mentoring, and networking opportunities–empowering Indigenous youth business leaders with the experience necessary to lead economic endeavors within their communities. Being chosen to participate in AIBL is the result of a competitive application process and Brionna is the only Library and Information Studies student in the entire program and the only student from the University of Oklahoma.
We are delighted to announce that Nazmin Sultana, a Ph.D. student in Information Studies, has been honored with the University Libraries Graduate Student Award of Excellence for her outstanding contributions as a Graduate Research Assistant at the Bizzell Memorial Library. Since Fall 2022, Nazmin has demonstrated unwavering dedication to the LIS community through her roles in library instruction, reference assistance, community engagement, and research. Her passion for service has also led her to volunteer at the library's Interlibrary Loan department and secure an internship at Noble Public Library starting summer 2024.
This achievement aligns with the mission of OU SLIS by educating innovative leaders, advancing interdisciplinary knowledge, and engaging diverse communities. Nazmin's recognition not only highlights her individual accomplishments but also underscores SLIS's commitment to shaping the future of librarianship and information studies.
International students often face barriers when accessing health information, such as language barriers, cultural differences, and unfamiliarity with the local healthcare system. Recognizing and addressing these disparities is essential for promoting equity and ensuring all students have equal access to health information. However, there is limited research on the health information needs and seeking behaviors of international students.
Xue Pan, a doctoral student in SLIS, participated in iConference 2024 and presented their research findings during both the virtual and in-person poster sessions. Collaborating with Dr. Ellen Rubenstein, they conducted semi-structured interviews to investigate the health information seeking behavior of international students. Their study aims to understand the motivations and barriers to seeking health information and to examine behavioral changes before and after students arrive in the United States.
Ph.D. student Ben Wang presented a doctoral consortium paper about a proactive system design to support human tasks at the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIIR). His travel was funded by the SIGIR Student Travel Grant. The study proposes a novel framework integrating user perceptions into Large Language Models (LLM) interactions to support user tasks and improve learning outcomes. The project’s significance extends beyond user engagement, promising broader societal impacts. He will continue this project as his dissertation work.
Ph.D. student Ben Wang, and his faculty advisor Dr. Jiqun Liu, presented a poster about Human-AI Interaction at the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIIR). This work was a collaboration with University of Oklahoma Computer Science undergraduate students, Jamshed Karimnazarov and Nicholas Thompson.
Their findings of a user study demonstrate that the supportive functions help users manage expectations, reduce cognitive loads, better refine prompts, and increase user engagement. This research enhances the comprehension of designing proactive and user-centric systems with Large Language Models (LLM). It offers insights into evaluating human-LLM interactions and emphasizes potential challenges for under-served users.
Maria Tahmekera, current MLIS student, was the recipient of the Connie Van Fleet Memorial Scholarship, named to honor SLIS Faculty Dr. Van Fleet. This award supports a student who is returning to school to work towards librarianship as a profession. Dr. Van Fleet viewed the public library as an essential public good serving as a key resource for public learning and cultural edification. She was a constant supporter of intellectual freedom and for many years organized OLA's annual challenged books exhibit. Dr. Van Fleet was a mentor for countless students during her career as an educator, encouraging many preprofessional library employees to complete their master's degrees.
Dr. Abbas and Her Research Team Led an Interactive Session Focused on Public Library Services for Refugees at the Oklahoma Library Association
Dr. June Abbas and her research team (Chie Noyori-Corbett - Zarrow School of Social Work, Jiening Ruan - College of Education, and doctoral student Xue Pan) presented their research from an IMLS funded grant (Refugee Services in US Public Libraries) at this year's Oklahoma Library Association conference. The session, entitled "Providing Library Services to Refugees in U.S. Public Libraries," discussed the results of a national survey of U.S. public librarians about the current programs and services libraries provide to refugees, and libraries' use of trauma-informed care practices. Attendees engaged in small group activities focused on challenges and barriers to providing services and how to implement trauma-informed programming and other related practices for refugees in their library.
Evelyn Cox, SLIS PhD Candidate recieves AAUW Fellowship
Evelyn Cox, a doctoral candidate in the School of Library and Information Studies and research project manager at OU’s Native Nations Center, has been awarded 2024-2025 American Fellowships from the American Association of University Women.
Cox’s award will support her doctoral dissertation, which focuses on archival recordkeeping and knowledge structures in underrepresented populations. This work will specifically focus on the CHamoru, or Indigenous people of the Mariana Islands, in Guam.
Read the full OU News Article Here
SLIS Doctoral students Moses Munyao and Nazmin Sultana present at the Oklahoma Library Association conference
Doctoral students Moses Munyao and Nazmin Sultana (along with the research team leaders Dr. June Abbas and Dr. Yong Ju Jung) presented some of the findings of their IMLS funded grant project, "“Making is For Everyone: Learning within Library Makerspaces for Youth with Disabilities” - IMLS funded research (LG-252323-OLS-22)". Their presentation, entitled, "The Prevalence of Public Library Makerspaces and Maker Programs for Youth with Disabilities" introduced the audience to the findings of the national survey of US public libraries designed to learn more about the prevalence of makerspaces and maker programming for youth with disabilities. Through an interactive discussion, the audience learned more about programming, community partnerships, obstacles and challenges faced by libraries, such as training, staffing, lack of resources, and funding, as well as best practices for providing inclusive maker programming.
SLIS Students Recognized at OLA Conference with Alumni Supported Scholarships
MLIS Student Kristi Hendricks was the recipient of the Dr. Fances Laverne Carroll Student Paper Award for 2024 for her work entitled "Shifting Archives: Embracing Cultural Provenance and Community".
Linda Folwer and Sue Ringus were both recipients of the Irma Rayne Tomberlin Scholarship sponsored by the Alumni Association. Both students were nominated by SLIS faculty to be considered for this award and were selected by Alumni Association members due to their demonstration of future promise of involvement in the library profession.
