Dr. Denise Agosto receives the SIG-USE Outstanding Contribution to Information Behavior Award

It is our great pleasure to announce the recipient of the 2018 SIG-USE Outstanding Contributions to Information Behavior Research Award, Dr. Denise Agosto. Candidates are nominated by their peers for this prestigious award and the selection is made by a jury comprised of two past SIG-USE Chairs and one previous winner.

Dr. Agosto is a Professor and Director of the MSLIS Program at the College of Computing & Informatics, Drexel University. Her research focuses on youth information behaviors, public libraries, multicultural issues in youth library services, and qualitative research methods. Dr. Agosto is one of the foremost experts in our field focusing on youth information behavior. She teaches courses squarely situated at the intersection of people and information, including Social Aspects of Information Systems, Information Resources & Services, Social & Professional Aspects of Information Service, Library Programming, Public Library Service, Storytelling & Digital Storytelling, Resources for Children, and Resources for Young Adults. Dr. Agosto also teaches Qualitative Research Methods.

Over the past two decades, Dr. Agosto has made significant contributions to the field of information behavior, authoring/co-authoring three books, close to 20 book chapters, more than 50 articles in peer-reviewed journals, and innumerable conference papers. Her work is well-respected and highly cited. Her most highly cited work appeared in the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIS&T) in 2002: “Bounded rationality and satisficing in your people’s Web-based decision making.” Dr. Agosto also serves on many editorial boards, including: Journal of Research on Libraries & Young Adults; Information and Learning Sciences; Advances in Librarianship; Library Quarterly; Journal of Information Technology Education: Innovations in Practice; Journal of Information Technology Education: Research; and Children’s Literature in Education.

Dr. Agosto has won many prestigious awards for her research and teaching. She has won several best paper awards with her co-authors, including the Young Adult Library Services Best Article Award(2018), the ALISE/Bohdan S. Wynar Research Paper Award (2016), a CSCW Honorable Mention Award (2014), and the ASIS&T SIG-USE Best Information Behavior Conference Paper Award(2010). Dr. Agosto has also won numerous teaching awards, including Drexel’s Center for the Advancement of STEM Teaching & Learning Excellence’s Instructor of the Week Award(2018), as well as the ASIS&T Thomson Reuters Outstanding Information Science Teacher of the Year Award(2015), and the ALISE Award for Teaching Excellence in the Field of Library and Information Science Education (2011).

Dr. Agosto has been active in SIG-USE and ASIS&T for many years. She has chaired the SIG-USE Executive(2012-2013) and the ASIS&T SIG-USE Research Symposium(2011). She has also served on numerous SIG-USE and ASIS&T awards committees, including the SIG-USE Chatman Research Award Committee, the SIG-USE Innovation Award Committee, and the ASIS&T Awards and Honors Committee. She also served as a Meta-Reviewer for the 2013 and 2014 ASIS&T Annual Meetings.

We are very pleased to honor Dr. Agosto with the 2018 ASIS&T SIG-USE Outstanding Contributions to Information Behavior Research Award. Her nomination packet was very strong, with the individual nominating her writing, “Professor Agosto brings a real-world sensibility to her work, including the librarian practitioner’s perspective, drawing in part from her previous experience as a librarian… She strives to make her work relevant and accessible to scholars, students, practitioners and even those outside the field, and she has thus furthered information behavior significantly.” One of the people who submitted a recommendation letter in support of Dr. Agosto’s nomination wrote, “In my opinion, there is no other information behavior researcher working in our field today who has contributed as much to the discipline and practice community through her research on youth-centered information behavior as Dr. Agosto.” And, finally, one of our jury members wrote that Dr. Agosto “is one of the brightest lights in the field [of] LIS and in Information Behavior research.”

As a recipient of this award, Dr. Agosto will be inducted into the ASIS&T SIG-USE Academy of Fellows. Other recent inductees include Dania Bilal (2017), Karen Fisher (2016), Sanda Erdelez (2015), Gary Marchionini (2014), and Nick Belkin (2013). For the full list of inductees, please see: https://siguse.wordpress.com/awards/.

Please join us for the 18^thannual ASIS&T SIG-USE Symposium on the afternoon of Saturday, November 10^th, when we will celebrate with Dr. Agosto her many achievements and the important contributions she has made to the information behavior field.

A big thank you to our SIG-USE Awards Committee, Sanghee Oh (Chair), Sarah Barriage, and Xiaojun (Jenny) Yuan, for all of their hard work overseeing this process, all of the individuals who nominated people and/or wrote recommendation letters for nominees, and to the jury members who evaluated all of the nomination packets received for this award this year.