January 27, 2010
Media Contact: Audrey Post
Audrey.Post@cci.fsu.edu
or (850) 645-8818
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Marcia Mardis
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Marcia Mardis, associate director of LSI's Partnerships Advancing Library Media (PALM) Center, and PALM doctoral fellow Janice Newsum have received the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) 2010 Frances Henne/YALSA/VOYA Research Award. The award provides $1,000 of seed money for small-scale projects that reflect YALSA’s research agenda in the area of young adult library services.
Entitled “Are Boys Radically Changing? A Fresh Exploration of Boys’ Internet Use in Public Libraries,” the project is designed to contextualize data about boys’ online behavior within the framework of the radical change theory. The theory acknowledges the effect of digital media on young adult and children’s literature from the perspectives of interactivity, connectivity and access.
“This is a very exciting accomplishment,” said Mardis, an assistant professor at the Florida State University
School of Library & Information Studies. “First, in that YALSA only awards one such grant each year and that Janice, who is a first-year doctoral student, is the lead researcher. We are very proud of the quality of our students. And second, that this grant allows us to build on the excellent work of our colleagues at Florida State. We’re very excited to continue on their path to improve youth services.”
The research will replicate a 2002 study and allow the researchers to examine why differences between past findings and the current study might exist. The researchers will also explore how the results can facilitate changes in research and practice.
The research award will be presented at the American Library Association's annual meeting in Washington, D.C., in June.
FSU's School of Library & Information Studies is one of three schools comprising the College of Communication & Information. The PALM Center is a joint effort of FSU's College of Communication & Information, College of Education and Learning Systems Institute. The center works to increase the visibility and focus on issues at the intersection of leadership, technology integration and critical literacies, particularly in the PreK-12 education arenas that include school library media centers.