SLIS graduate Michael Witt (MLS’ 06) is the Interdisciplinary Research Librarian at Purdue University. He is currently supervising two Master of Library Science interns from the SLIS Indianapolis program: Marcy Wilhelm and Rachel Newbury. Together, Witt, Wilhelm and Newbury developed a poster titled "Finding Repositories of Research Data with Datalib" that has been accepted for the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference to be held June 2012 in Anaheim, California. They will present the poster in Session I: Saturday, June 23, 2012 from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Table 12.

According to the ALA Website, poster sessions “are an effective forum for the exchange of information and a means to communicate ideas, research, and programs” and may include “a description of an innovative library program, an analysis of a practical problem-solving effort, or a report of a research study.” This year, the Poster Sessions Committee received 259 proposals and accepted approximately 46% - (per the email notification the contributors received from ALA).

SLIS faculty member Marilyn Irwin submitted this story to SLIS News with a particular pride in Witt's development as a professional in the field. She was the mentor for the ALA Emerging Leader Program's Team X in 2008. Witt was selected as one of the ALA Emerging Leaders that year - and was on Team X. The team's project was to assist ASCLA in "planning and promoting the release of an 'accessibility toolkit' of fifteen pamphlets that provide information on different aspects of accessibility as well as an Electronic Accessibility Checklist. The subjects of the pamphlets included developmental disabilities, learning disabilities, service animals, vision, mental illness, physical disabilities, and more."

Witt was also featured in an earlier SLIS News story about his selection as a Fulbright Scholar to Alexandria, Egypt in 2011.

Posted March 23, 2012