Congratulations to Ana Roeschley, Information Science PhD candidate, who is this year’s recipient of the Student Engagement Award, offered by the Association for Information Science & Technology Special Interest Group – Digital Libraries (SIG-DL). The Student Engagement Award was established to assist promising students in becoming active contributors within the ASIS&T community through involvement in SIG-DL.

“I am incredibly grateful to SIG-DL for the Student Engagement Award. This award will make traveling to Australia for the ASIS&T Annual Meeting so much easier for me, enabling me to present my research at the conference and to participate in the ASIS&T community. I am also excited to expand my involvement with SIG-DL, not only because of this award, but because my research and teaching are heavily focused on digital libraries and digital archives,” said Ana.

Ana is in her third year of the Information Science PhD program. Her research interests include collective memory, digital humanities, and participatory archival culture. She is actively involved with the ASIS&T organization, and is serving her second term as president of the UNT ASIS&T Student Chapter . In addition, she is also currently serving her 2-year tenure as an ASIS&T New Leader, an award and position given to new members who demonstrate leadership potential.

The SIG-DL is a special interest group of the ASIS&T organization that provides a forum for discussion about research, development, and use of digital libraries in corporate, academic, and public contexts. The group is concerned with all aspects of digital library design and implementation such as copyright issues, preservation, metadata, and policies and standards in relation to the digitization of material. The SIG-DL Award is intended to encourage professional activity in ASIS&T by students who are interested in digital libraries and related initiatives. It is open to currently enrolled information science or library science students, and selection is based on an evaluation of the applicant’s essay, biography, and resume.

Tamarack Hockin, Chair of the SIG, stated that they had an exceptionally strong pool of candidates this year, but noted that the relevance of Ana’s research, professional involvement and leadership capacities would thrive with attendance at the 2019 ASIS&T Annual Meeting.

The Award is a modest monetary sum to assist with deferring travel costs to the ASIS&T Annual Meeting, to be held in Melbourne, Australia from October 19-23.  The award will be issued prior to the ASIS&T Annual Meeting, and an award certificate will be presented in a ceremony during the SIG-DL Business Meeting at the ASIS&T Annual Meeting.