Information Professional Award 2011 – winner announced

We are pleased to announce that a generous, inspiring, and energetic information professional has won this year’s SLA Europe Information Professional Award (SLA Europe IP 2011).

Professor Hazel Hall is both Director of Centre for Social Informatics at Edinburgh Napier University and Executive Secretary at the Library and Information Science (LIS) Research Coalition. In both of these roles she is an early and eager adopter of new technology to inform and improve professional practice. Consistently throughout her career Hazel has been keen to share knowledge and skills outside of her immediate job area, for example working for the information industry consultancy TFPL in 2006 on a secondment to examine e-information roles.

Hazel is a prolific and highly-regarded author, with over 50 academic papers and publications to her name. She has also given an impressive number of presentations, , including delivering the closing keynote at the Internet Librarian International 2010 Conference on the hidden potential of social media.
Hazel’s nominators were emphatic in their appreciation for Hazel’s enthusiasm and professional generosity. They mention ‘her sincere generosity of spirit’, as well as her professional accomplishments, which have placed her at the ‘vanguard of adopting new technology to improve professional practice’.

The Award covers Hazel’s expenses for attendance at the SLA Conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 12-15 June 2011, The award will be formally presented by the Award sponsor Dow Jones at the International Reception on 13th June.

In addition, the board is pleased to recognise two shortlisted candidates:
Emily Allbon is Law Librarian at City University, where she has developed Learnmore, a sister site to the Law resource LawBore. This resource provides students with an online hub for learning legal skills, and feedback from students has been incredibly positive.
Steve Bailey is the Senior Adviser for Records Management at JISC infoNET. As well as producing a number of publications and resources on records management, Steve has produced the highly successful Impact Calculator, which allows organisations to evaluate the impact of records and information management, and to demonstrate the effectiveness of investing in records management.

SLA Europe gratefully acknowledges the support of Dow Jones.