PIONEERS IN INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SCOOP TOP AWARDS

UKeiG are delighted to announce today the winners of the Strix and Jason
Farradane Awards, which will be presented at the Online Information
conference and exhibition at London's Olympia in December.  The awards are
sponsored by The Journal of Information Science, published by SAGE, the
world's largest, independent academic publisher.

Both awards celebrate achievement in the broad field of information
management.  The 2007 Strix Award, created in honour of Dr Tony Kent, is
made to Mats Lindquist, senior executive officer at the National Library of
Sweden.  
 
"We're delighted to award the tenth annual Strix Award to Professor
Lindquist, "said Adrian Dale, editor of The Journal of Information Science
and Online Information conference chairman.  "In the world of practical full
text information retrieval he is one of the "giants", wholly in the spirit
of Tony Kent's contribution in chemical information".  

Professor Lindquist won the Strix Award for his key role in the development
and significant improvement in accessibility to an information service
through the business development of Paralog AB and its TRIP retrieval
system.  The Award also recognises his sustained contribution over many
years to the field of information retrieval.

The Jason Farradane Award, which recognises brilliant work in information
science, is made to executive director of Intute, Caroline Williams and the
Intute community network.  Intute is a free online service, created in
partnership with university subject specialists, with over 100,000 links to
academic content on the web, as well as a suite of virtual training
tutorials and internet information services.

Adrian Dale praised highly the winners.  "Intute is a great example of the
UK library community taking a long-term, pioneering role in the Internet
information environment.  Through effective collaboration, they have
developed a national service which now has a global reputation."

Intute's origins lie in the 1996 Electronic Libraries programme, where a
number of librarians and researchers won JISC (Joint Information Systems
Committee) funding to develop their ideas for new Internet gateway services.
The service has thrived as it has always actively pursued exploring original
ways of working online, as a community.  Intute has also innovated with new
technologies - such as Web 2.0 - but always against balanced judgements
about their relative value to education and research.

The Awards will be presented at the Online Conference to be held from 4 - 6
December at London's Olympia.  

ENDS

CONTACT:  Chris Armstrong, UKeiG and Information Automation Ltd

Email: [log in to unmask]
Tel: (+44) 1974 251302

 
NOTES FOR EDITORS

UKeiG is an established professional group for all information
professionals, users and developers of electronic information resources. The
Group 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.
UKeiG is a Special Interest Group of CILIP: the Chartered Institute of
Library and Information Professionals.  www.cilip.org.uk

SAGE is a leading international publisher of journals, books, and
electronic media for academic, educational, and professional markets.  Since
1965, SAGE has helped inform and educate a global community of scholars,
practitioners, researchers, and students spanning a wide range of subject
areas including business, humanities, social sciences, and science,
technology and medicine.  An independent company, SAGE has principal offices
in Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, and Singapore. www.sagepub.co.uk 

The Journal of Information Science is an international journal of high
repute covering topics of interest to all those researching and working in
the sciences of information and knowledge management. The Journal seeks to
achieve a better understanding of the principles that underpin the effective
creation, organization, storage, communication and utilization of
information and knowledge resources. It also seeks to understand how policy
and practice in the area can be built on sound theoretical or heuristic
foundations to achieve a greater impact on the
world economy. http://jis.sagepub.com/ 

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.

Past winners have been Stella Dextre Clarke (2006); Jack Mills (2005);
Professor Cornelis Joost (Keith) van Rijsbergen (2004); Dr Herbert van
Sompel (2003); Malcolm Jones (2002); Professor Peter Willett (2001); Dr
Martin Porter (2000); Dr Donna Harman (1999); Professor Stephen Robertson
(1998). 
 
Jason Farradane graduated in chemistry in 1929 at what is now Imperial
College and started work in industry as a chemist and documentalist. He was
instrumental in establishing the Institute of Information Scientists (IIS)
in 1958 and the first academic courses in information science in 1960 at the
precursor of City University, where he became Director of
the Centre for Information Science in 1966. On the research side his main
contributions lay in relational analysis, which can now perhaps be seen as
providing a precursor to work in the area of A.I., and the concept of
information. He saw information science as a step towards understanding and
better organizing ourselves. The IIS first presented the award in 1979, to
Jason Farradane.

Previous award winners have included University of Warwick Library for The
Learning Grid; Michael Koenig; Bruce Royan; Michael Keen; Newcastle
University Library; Sandra Ward; Phil Williams and Phil Holmes.