News & Notes from FIMS

News and Announcements

FIMS appoints new Alumni & Development Officer
Tracy Fawdry has been appointed as the Alumni & Development Officer for the faculty. FIMS alumni who would like to connect with Tracy are welcome to contact her by email (tfawdry@uwo.ca) or phone (519-661-2111 x80188).

Photo Gallery from LIS 50th Anniversary Reception posted online
Western Alumni has posted the photo gallery from the LIS 50th Anniversary Reception from February online. It was a busy evening with a large turnout and lots of good conversation. The gallery can be viewed on Western Alumni’s Flickr account.

50 Years of Excellence
FIMS Dean Thomas Carmichael attended the OLA SuperConference in Toronto in February 2017 to accept a plaque from the Ontario Library Association on behalf of the faculty, marking 50 years of excellence in librarianship education.

FIMS and Western Libraries announce partnership with Library and Archives Canada (LAC)
Western University and Library and Archives Canada (LAC) announced a partnership earlier this year that will see LAC working closely with researchers and students from the Faculty of Media and Information Studies as well as Western Libraries, one of the largest research library systems in Canada (keep reading).

In Memoriam: LIS Professor Emeritus Hans Schulte-Albert
Professor Emeritus Hans Schulte-Albert passed away on Saturday, January 28 in London. Professor Schulte-Albert received his PhD in Library and Information Science in 1972 from Case Western Reserve University, with a dissertation on “Leibniz’s Plans for a World Encyclopedia System.”  In the same year, he joined the School of Library and Information Science at Western and continued as a faculty member until his retirement in the early 1990s (Read the obituary).

Book shortlisted for the RBC Taylor Prize
Max Eisen, who with the assistance of Associate Professor Amanda Grzyb recently published the story of his survival at Auschwitz, was shortlisted for the RBC Taylor Prize for Canadian nonfiction. Mr. Eisen and Professor Grzyb were featured in a Western News article in April 2016, in which he discussed the process of writing the book. More information about his book, By Chance Alone: A Remarkable True Story of Courage and Survival at Auschwitz, can be found on the Harper Collins Canada website.

FIMS Faculty on USC Teaching Honour Roll
The USC posted the list of faculty members who taught in 2015/16 who were included on the USC Award of Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Honour Roll. Honour roll appointees received an average score of 6.3 or higher in their teaching evaluations. FIMS faculty members on the list include: Paul Benedetti, Andrea Benoit, Tim Blackmore, Dan Brown, Chris Clark, Jeremy Copeland, Mandy Grzyb, Selma Purac, Mark Rayner, John Reed, Andie Shabbar, and Sharon Sliwinski.

Welcome to new FIMS staff and faculty
FIMS was pleased to welcome several new staff and faculty members over the summer. Stacey Lapp joined the FIMS Graduate Library as the new library assistant. Tracy Fawdry comes from Education to fill the role of Alumni & Development Officer for FIMS. Melissa Adler joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor, moving from the School of Information Science at the University of Kentucky. FIMS is also hosting two visiting scholars this term, including David Marshall, from Deakin University, Australia, and Janet Adekannbi, Africa Regional Centre for Information Science, University of Ibadan, Nigeria.

New Publications from FIMS Faculty

Covering Canadian Crime: What Journalists Should Know and the Public Should Question: Edited by Romayne Smith Fullerton and Chris Richardson (April 2016)

Plotting the Reading Experience: Theory/Practice/Politics: Edited by Paulette Rothbauer, Lynne (E.F.) McKechnie, Knut Oterholm and Kjell Skjerdingstad (June 2016)

You Can Have a Dog when I’m Dead: Essays on Life at an Angle: By Paul Benedetti (February 2017)

The SAGE Handbook of Social Media Research Methods: Edited by Anabel Quan-Haase and Luke Sloan (February 2017)

Dreaming in Dark Times: Six Exercises in Political Thought: By Sharon Sliwinski (March 2017)

Photography and the Optical Unconscious: Co-Edited by Sharon Sliwinski and Shawn Smith (May 2017)

Additional Activities of Note

The latest iteration of Professor Sharon Sliwinski's on-going research project on dream-life is available online: www.museumofdreams.org
 
"The Museum of Dreams is a hub for exploring the social and political significance of dream-life. We collect and creatively work with dreams from the historical record and provide a platform for collaborative storytelling projects. The site includes entries by Western faculty and students, among others."

Professor Tim Blackmore was featured in a blog post on May 9, 2017 titled, “Post-Truth. Alternative Facts. Fake News. Blimey!” In an audio clip he chats with James Shelley about pressing issues in today’s media landscape.

Recent Thesis Defenses

Erisa Deda, MHIS student, successfully defended her thesis "Living with COPD through the eyes of veterans and their spouses residing in Ontario" on April 21, 2017. Erisa was supervised by Debbie Fitzsimmons.

Lisa Di Valentino, LIS PhD student, successfully defended her thesis “Laying the Foundation for Copyright Policy and Practice in Canadian Universities,” on December 21, 2016. Lisa was supervised by Samuel Trosow.

Tom Eldik, MHIS student, successfully defended his thesis "Pharmaceutical Direct-to-Consumer Advertising: Analyses of Policy Stakeholders and Supreme Court of Canada Interveners" on June 22, 2017. Tom was co-supervised by Sandra Regan and Margaret Ann Wilkinson.

Darryl Pieber, MA Media Studies student, successfully defended his thesis "A place for locative media: A theoretical framework for assessing locative media use in urban environments" on July 14, 2017. Darryl was supervised by Anabel Quan-Haase.

Kathleen Schreurs, LIS PhD student, successfully defended her dissertation "The E-Writing Experiences of Literary Authors" on September 13, 2017. Kathleen was supervised by Lynne McKechnie.

Danielle Taschereau Mamers, PhD Media Studies student, successfully defended her dissertation "Settler Colonial Ways of Seeing: Documentary Governance of Indigenous Life in Canada and its Disruption" on May 31, 2017. Danielle was supervised by Sharon Sliwinski.