Nomination Call: The Mary B. Ansari Distinguished Service Award

The Geoscience Information Society (GSIS) seeks nominations for the 2021 Mary B. Ansari Distinguished Service Award.  The submission deadline is September 3, 2021. This award was established in 2005 to recognize and honor significant contributions to the geoscience information profession.  Named for Mary B. Ansari, a former GSIS President and strong supporter of the Society, the award is presented at the annual meeting and is accompanied by a monetary gift. Past awardees are listed on the Society’s website https://www.geoinfo.org/distinguished-service/.

Membership in the Geoscience Information Society is not a requirement for the award. 

Submission requirements are: 

      Your name and contact information

      Name, title, and contact information of the nominee 

      Copy of resume or curriculum vita

      Two additional letters of support

Please send nomination information to cpmcleod@wustl.edu.

Mary B. Ansari Distinguished Service Award Committee

Marie Dvorak  (marie.dvorak@wisc.edu)

Clara P. McLeod, Chair  (cpmcleod@wustl.edu)

Edward Lener (lener@vt.edu)

GSIS 2020 Virtual Meeting Agenda

Please note: Attendance is free; however, registration is required – additional information and the schedule of sessions are online at : https://bit.ly/2GwEVg9

Wednesday, October 28, 2020

3:00-6:00 (Eastern Time) : GSIS Business Meeting
Cynthia Prosser

Thursday, October 29, 2020

11:30-12:00 (Eastern Time) :
AGI and GeoRef Update: Sharon Tahirkheli

12:15-1:45 (Eastern Time)
Common Read: Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History by Stephen Jay Gould
Moderator: Cynthia Prosser

2:00-3:00 (Eastern Time)
FDLP Webinar: “Library Research for Natural Hazard Events: Earthquakes, Hurricanes, Volcanoes, and Wildfires” by Emily Wild
A separate registration to this free event is online at : https://libcal.princeton.edu/event/7165734

4:00-6:00 (Eastern Time): Vendor Update
The Geological Society
GeoScienceWorld

…and more!

Friday, October 30, 2020

11:00-12:00 (Eastern Time)
“How Are You and Your Library Coping with COVID-19?” Sharing of stories, solutions and impacts:  collection development, staffing, reference, communication/marketing
Moderator: Linda Musser

12:00-12:30 (Eastern Time)
Break

12:30-1:00 (Eastern Time)
Bring-Your-Own Lunch and Awards Presentations

1:05-2:20 (Eastern Time)
“Build Your Toolkit”: Share favorite or/or lesser-known geoscience information resources and professional tools
(suggestions – FlyOver app, Rockd app, Padlet, Guidebooks database, Internet archive of FTG, State survey pubs at AGI, Sherpa/Romeo, Microsoft Academic search, Repository Finder, etc.)

Moderator: Shaun Hardy

2:20-2:30 (Eastern Time)
Break

2:30-4:00 (Eastern Time)
Professional Issue Roundtable: Moderated discussion of topics identified in advance from member suggestions
Moderator: Sam Teplitzky

Attend the Geoscience Librarianship (GL101 ) Workshop

The Geoscience Information Society will offer again its annual free workshop on geoscience information – virtually, this year – on Monday and Tuesday afternoons, October 26 and October 27. The sessions will begin at 3:00 PM Eastern Time each day and run until 6-7 PM. Topics will include: Introduction to the Geosciences, Collection Development, Government Documents, and Maps and Geospatial Data. All information professionals as well as students in library and information studies are invited to attend this professional development opportunity.

General registration is required , but participants may select individual sessions to attend. Though GL101 is being held in conjunction with the Geological Society of America (GSA) Annual Meeting, registration for GSA is not required.

Additional information (including registration) will be forthcoming and posted here. Please save the dates and check back!

Schedule is now available at:
https://www.geoinfo.org/geoscience-librarianship-101/

Announcing the 2020 GSIS Best Paper Award Recipient

The committee is very pleased to announce that Dr. Jason W. Karl is the winner of the 2020 Best Paper Award of the Geoscience Information Society for his paper, “Mining Location Information from Life- and Earth-Sciences Studies to Facilitate Knowledge Discovery,” published in Journal of Librarianship & Information Science 51 (4): 1007-21. doi:10.1177/0961000618759413.

Jason’s well-written paper reports the promising results of his project to research and develop automated methods to determine and retrieve accurate location data in map-based resources. He states in the abstract, “The ability to automatically identify and extract location information from published studies opens new possiblities for transforming scientific literature discovery and supporting novel research.”

Jason is Associate Professor & Harold F. Heady Endowed Chair of Rangeland Ecology at the University of Idaho. He is also Editor in Chief of Rangelands, a publication of the Society for Range Management.

A big thanks goes to Bob Tolliver, Caitlin McClurg, Chris Badurek, Elise Gowan, Hannah Collier, Carl Olson, and Monica Pereira for their exemplary service on the Best Paper Committee.

Respectfully,
Kay Johnson
Chair, 2020 GSIS Best Paper Committee

Note: The 2019 award was not offered, so the 2020 award covers papers from 2018 and 2019.