LITA is pleased to announce the 2011 winner of the Frederick G. Kilgour Award for Research in Library and Information Technology, Daniel J. Cohen. Dr. Cohen is an associate professor of history and art history at George Mason University and the director of the Center for History and New Media. The committee chose Dr. Cohen from a strong field of nominated leaders whose work have positively impacted libraries and information technology.
With support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Dr. Cohen leads the development of the free, open-source Zotero (http://zotero.org) software for managing and sharing research sources. Zotero is currently implemented as a set of Web browser and word processor plug-ins that can synchronize citations and other information with a public server, which also serves as a social network and discovery platform for fellow researchers. Work is currently underway to develop a stand-alone implementation of Zotero for Windows, Linux and Macintosh operating systems as well as plug-ins for a broader range of Web browsers.
Cohen’s scholarship includes the exploration of digital humanities and pursuing new ways to collect and preserve history on the Web. He has directed several archival projects, including the September 11 Digital Archive, ECHO: Exploring & Collecting History Online, and the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank: Preserving the Stories of Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. Cohen is the author of four books and has delivered dozens of papers and featured presentations at venues of interest to library technologists.
“I am incredibly humbled by this recognition,” Dr. Cohen said, “and I enormously appreciate the collaborative work that I have been fortunate to be a part of with librarians, technologists, scholars and especially my extraordinarily talented colleagues at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.”
The award, which is jointly sponsored by OCLC, is given for research relevant to the development of information technologies, especially work that shows promise of having a positive and substantive impact on any aspect(s) of the publication, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information, or the processes by which information and data is manipulated and managed. The awardee receives $2,000, a citation and an expenses paid trip to the ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans, where the award will be presented on June 26.
Members of the 2011 LITA/OCLC Kilgour Award committee are: Michael Witt, Purdue University (chair); Patrick J. Mullin, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (past chair); Zinthia Briceno-Rosales, Washington State University; Ronald A. Peterson, University of Delaware; H. Frank Cervone, Purdue University-Calumet; Mona C. Couts, LITA board liaison; and Roy Tennant, OCLC liaison.
+More information on the Kilgour Award and other LITA awards