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Poole Wins Bob Williams History Fund Best Research Paper Award

The Association for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T) is delighted to announce that Alex Poole has been awarded a 2018 Bob Williams History Fund Award for his research paper titled “Harold T. Pinkett and the Lonely Crusade of African American Archivists in the Twentieth Century.” The Bob Williams History Fund was created for the purposes of supporting and encouraging research and publication in the history of information science and technology.

Poole was selected from among a pool of outstanding candidates who were judged based on the relevance of the central topic or question to be researched to the history of information science and technology.

In selecting Poole, the Jury said, “Poole’s fascinating and well-researched account of the role of African Americans in the development of archives in the United States addresses a much-neglected topic of diverse contributions to archival theory and practice. Although these papers reflect very different subjects, the jury found both papers to be well-executed, excellently written articles on fascinating yet previously-neglected topics that could enrich the history of the field.”

Upon learning of his selection as a Bob Williams History Fund Award winner, Poole said, “I am both deeply honored and deeply humbled to receive the Dr. Bob Williams History Fund Best Paper Award. Dr. Williams was a pillar of ASIS&T and of the information science community more broadly; his establishment of the archives program and the joint History/LIS degree at the University of South Carolina merits particular praise. I would like to thank my mentors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, especially Helen Tibbo, Cal Lee, Ryan Shaw, Sandra Hughes-Hassell, Diane Kelly, Barbara Wildemuth, and Gary Marchionini, as well as Costis Dallas of the University of Toronto. Similarly, I greatly appreciate the support of my colleagues at Drexel University, especially Susan E. Davis, Jane Greenberg, Denise Agosto, Lori Richards, Deborah A. Garwood, Ellen Bass, Xia Lin, and Yi Deng. I look forward to contributing to ASIS&T for many years to come and to encouraging and producing scholarship that engages with our past to illuminate possibilities for our future.”

Poole will accept the award at the 2018 meeting of the Association for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T) which will be held in Vancouver, Canada, November 10-14, 2018.