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Librarians Making a Difference - Part 2

© Gillian Davis

Last week's profiled professionals were Marylaine Block, Steve Coffman, Barbara Quint, and Chris Sherman. Here are some more librarians and information professionals who are making a significant impact on the field of librarianship today.

Joe Janes – Creator of the unparalleled Internet Public Library http://www.ipl.org/ , Joe Janes is recognized as one of the experts in the field of digital librarianship and reference research. Joe has an MLS and PHD from Syracuse University, taught at the School of Information at the University of Michigan where he developed the IPL, and now is Assistant Professor at the University of Washington School of Library and Information Science. He is the author of dozens of articles and is a frequent speaker at library conferences on the topics of digital reference services and the use of Internet technologies in librarianship. He’s an enthusiastic, talented presenter and it’s always a pleasure to see him speak.

Greg Notess – His Search Engine Showdown http://searchengineshowdown.com/ is the authoritative tool on Web search technology in the Internet community. His site provides in-depth analysis, reviews, and comparisons of search engines and subject directories as well as statistics, search tips, articles, news, and links. Greg also publishes On the Net http://www.notess.com/write/onthenet.sht... , a column featuring information tools and resources of interest to information professionals, is the author of Government Information on the Internet, 3rd Edition and many articles, and is a Reference Librarian and Associate Professor at Montana State University.

Carole Leita - As Coordinator of the fabulous Librarians' Index to the Internet http://lii.org/ , Carole's contributions to librarianship are vast. The LII started as her Gopher bookmark file in 1990, and was known as the Berkeley Public Library Index to the Internet in the mid-nineties before it evolved into the LII as it is today. With 77 (at last count) librarians specially trained to index sites, the LII is one of the best subject directories on the Web, highly-used and highly-regarded (for some accolades see http://lii.org/search/file/quotes ). Carole got her MLS from the University of Minnesota, was a Reference Librarian at Berkeley Public Library for many years, and is currently a trainer and consultant for InfoPeople http://www.infopeople.org in addition to her duties with LII.

Jessamyn West - Puttin' rarin' back in librarian since 1993, Jessamyn's creative weblog Librarian.net http://www.librarian.net/ is an excellent source for news and interesting happenings in the world of librarians and librarianship internationally. Her provocative, interesting, unique, and fun site is a refreshing addition to the usual Web guides, current awareness tools, and librariana sites on the Internet. Archives go back to April of 1999. To learn more about Jessamyn be sure to check out http://www.jessamyn.com/ and read Marylaine Block's "Guru Interview" with her in the April 13th 1999 issue of Ex Libris http://marylaine.com/exlibris/xlib22.html .