For the third time in six years, a SIS student is awarded the Dialog company’s Roger K. Summit Scholarship.
The $5,000 award is named in honor of the founder and current chairman emeritus of Dialog. A Thomson business and a leading worldwide provider of online-based information services and integrated information solutions, Dialog made the announcement during a ceremony at the 94th Annual Conference of the Special Libraries Association meeting in Nashville last spring.
Selected from a large national pool of applicants, Ann Clapp graduated this year with a Master of Science degree from the School of Information Sciences’ (SIS) distance learning program. Working from her home in Nolensville, Tennessee, a community south of Nashville, Clapp pursued her studies while also caring for a child and helping to manage her family’s farm. She earned the School of Information Science’s Academic Achievement Award this year.
Clapp is also an advocate of the Tennessee Electronic Library, which provides online educational and research services to libraries across the state. She has visited state legislators to lobby for funding during Tennessee’s Library Legislative Day and currently works with families of home-schooled children to teach them how to best use the online resource.
“We are delighted to award Ann with this year’s scholarship and especially to do so right here in her home state,” said Libby Trudell, Dialog senior vice-president of information professional development. “Ann did a great job at UT-Knoxville, and her passion for the Tennessee Electronic Library is impressive. We have no doubt that she will continue to make a real contribution to Tennessee and librarianship as her career progresses.”
Prior to her studies at the School of Information Sciences, Clapp worked as a district manager for a bookstore chain. She also has completed a bibliographic instruction and reference program at Middle Tennessee State University and worked in a public library in Franklin, Tennessee. Clapp earned her undergraduate degree from Lipscomb University in Nashville, with a major in English and a minor in music.
Dialog awards Summit Scholarships in different parts of the world each year to graduate students in accredited library and information science programs with demonstrated academic achievement, keen interest in electronic information services, proficiency in using Dialog’s online services and products as demonstrated by a searching test, and strong recommendations from their faculty.
Former SIS graduate students Rachel Kirk and Michelle McGinnis have also won the scholarship.
