This is a FREE online event, open to everyone, BUT advance bookings ARE required
The Award was presented to Professor Ruthven late last year in recognition of his outstanding practical innovation and achievements in the field of information retrieval.
Professor Ruthven's lecture is entitled:
Google’s what you use when Alexa doesn’t know the answer, Uncle Ian
Abstract: Search is now a pervasive online activity. The ability to successfully interact with the information tools we have available to us is a key life skill, one that forms part of what is often seen as essential information literacy. However, even though we may not be able to imagine everyday life without these tools, they are a staggeringly recent phenomenon. Key to their success has been the interfaces and interaction models that underpin these information tools. Interactive search has been the site of rich study and experimentation and this research has taught us much about how we work with information and how information systems can support our interactions with information. In this presentation, I shall look at some of the history of interactive searching, discuss why some of the tools we use now are more successful than others, and look forward to how we might be interacting with information in the future.
UKeiG is also delighted to announce that Thomas D. Wilson (Professor Emeritus, University of Sheffield, UK) and the winner of the 2020 Jason Farradane Award, given in recognition of an outstanding contribution to the library and information profession, will open the afternoon with a presentation entitled:
Managing information to serve the information user
Professor Wilson will address two key elements of his research to date: the essential link and convergence between information management and information behaviour. He asks the fundamental question: how can we manage information effectively if we don't know how people seek and use information?
Full programme details
• 2.00 Login to the Zoom waiting room
• 2.15 Douglas Veal (Strix) and David Ball (UKeiG) – Chairs’ welcome – an overview of the Strix award
• 2.30 Introductory presentation – Thomas D. Wilson (Professor Emeritus, University of Sheffield, UK)
• 3.00 Questions & discussion
• 3.15 The Tony Kent Strix Annual Memorial Lecture
• 4.00 Questions, discussion, announcements
• 4.30 Meeting closes
Speakers in brief
Ian Ruthven
Ian Ruthven, Professor of Information Seeking and Retrieval at the Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Strathclyde, leads the Strathclyde Information School Research Group (SISRG). SISRG, a popular and respected research team within the international research community, operates across the boundaries between information and computer sciences and has established an international reputation for research excellence.
Dr. David McMenemy nominated Ian for the 2020 Strix Award. ‘Professor Ruthven has developed extensive national and international collaborations. His personal research is focused on the human experience of interacting with information, particularly on finding information. This involves understanding how people approach the task of seeking information, designing appropriate interactive search systems, and developing human-focused approaches for evaluating information systems.'
Thomas D. Wilson
Thomas D. Wilson (Professor Emeritus, University of Sheffield, UK) is well known for his pioneering work in open access through the foundation and editing of Information Research: an international electronic journal. He has an international reputation as a researcher in the field of information behaviour and for his work on modelling the processes of information behaviour and the formulation of a behavioural theory.
Awards in brief
The Tony Kent Strix Award was inaugurated in 1998 by the Institute of Information Scientists. It is now presented by UKeiG in partnership with the International Society for Knowledge Organisation UK (ISKO UK), the Royal Society of Chemistry Chemical Information and Computer Applications Group (RSC CICAG) and the British Computer Society Information Retrieval Specialist Group (BCS IRSG).
Jason Farradane first made an impact on the LIS community with a paper on the ‘scientific approach to documentation’ presented at a Royal Society Scientific Information Conference in 1948. He was instrumental in establishing the Institute of Information Scientists in 1958, alongside the first academic information science courses in 1963 at the precursor to City University, London, where he became Director of the Centre for Information Science in 1966.