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News from CILIP
Thursday 18 May 2006
For immediate release  (Please copy to online discussion lists)					

Tony Kent Strix Award

Nominations for the 2006 Award are now invited

The UKeiG Tony Kent Strix Award is given in recognition of an outstanding contribution to the field of information retrieval. The Award is sponsored by SAGE Publications.

Nominations are now invited for the 2006 Award. Nominations should be for achievement that meets one or more of the following criteria:

* development of, or significant improvement in, mechanisms for the retrieval of information, either generally or in a specialised field;
* development of, or significant improvement in, accessibility to an information service;
* a sustained contribution over a period of years to the field of information retrieval; for example, by running an information service or by contributing at national or international level to organisations active in the field;
* a major and/or sustained contribution to the theoretical or experimental understanding of the information retrieval process;
* a major contribution to fostering the education, training and/or general awareness of the importance and the technicalities of information retrieval. 

Key characteristics that the judges will look for in nominations are innovation, initiative, originality and practicality. The Award is open to individuals or groups from anywhere in the world.

Nominations should take the form of a short description (no more than 3 sides of A4) of the work in question, together with full contact details of both the nominee and the nominator. Do not forget to include any documentation, references or URLs which may support the nomination. Nominations should reach the judges by Friday 15th September 2006.

Nominations will be judged by a panel of experts, and the statuette of an owl will be presented to the winner during the annual Online Information Meeting in London in late November. 

The Strix Award is presented in memory of Dr Tony Kent, a past Fellow of the Institute of Information Scientists, who died in 1997. Tony Kent made a major contribution to the development of information retrieval and information services both in the UK and internationally, particularly in the field of chemistry. The name Strix was chosen both to reflect Tony's interest in ornithology, and the name of one of the last and most successful information retrieval packages which he created.

Nominations for the 2006 Award are now invited, and should be sent with full supporting documentation to:

Alan Gilchrist, 
32 Friar Road, Brighton BN1 6NH
Tel: 01273 705226
Email: Mailto:[log in to unmask]

The closing date for nominations is Friday 15th September 2006. Further details can be found on the UKeiG website at: www.ukeig.org.uk/awards/tonykentstrix.html


Notes to Editors:

The Tony Kent Strix Award is made by UKeiG, the UK e-Information Group, a special interest group of CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.  Through its activities, UkeiG encourages communication and the exchange of best practice and knowledge across all sectors and offers an e-journal, a mailing list, an annual programme of training courses and an array of awards and bursaries. For more details about UkeiG, please go to www.ukeig.org.uk/.

CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals is the leading professional body for librarians, information specialists and knowledge managers, with around 23,000 members working in all sectors, including business and industry, science and technology, further and higher education, schools, local and central government, the health service, the voluntary sector, national and public libraries.  For more information about CILIP, please go to www.cilip.org.uk.

About the Tony Kent Strix Award sponsor

SAGE Publications (www.sagepublications.com/) is a leading international publisher of journals, books and electronic media for scholarly, educational and professional markets. Since 1965, SAGE has helped inform and educate a global community of scholars, practitioners, researchers, and students. SAGE Publications, a privately owned corporation, has principal offices in London, United Kingdom; Thousand Oaks, California; and New Delhi, India.

Past winners of the Tony Kent Strix Award include:

2005 	Jack Mills
2004 	Professor Cornelis Joost (Keith) van Rijsbergen
2003 	Dr Herbert van Sompel
2002  Malcolm Jones
2001  Professor Peter Willett
2000  Dr Martin Porter
1999  Dr Donna Harman
1998  Professor Stephen Robertson


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