Gross to lead national library and information science association

Melissa Gross

Florida State University Professor Melissa Gross will be the next president of the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE), an organization that serves as the intellectual home of faculty in library and information science graduate programs throughout North America.

Gross, a professor in the College of Communication and Information's School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS), was elected vice president/president-elect by the association membership and will assume the presidency next year. ALISE serves 725 individual members and more than 60 institutional members, primarily in the United States and Canada.

"This is a great honor for Melissa and for our school," said SLIS Associate Professor Don Latham, who has worked with Gross on numerous research projects. "ALISE promotes excellence in research, teaching and service. These are all areas in which Melissa excels."

Gross' election as ALISE vice president/president-elect seems a natural progression for the professor at Florida State's School of Library & Information Studies of its College of Communication & Information.

"I attended my first ALISE conference as a doctoral candidate in 1997," she said. "Since that time, I have become increasingly involved in ALISE, and I believe that I am in a unique position to provide continuity in the development and application of its policy and procedures as it moves into the future."

Gross was the association's director for membership services from 2007 to January 2010. In that capacity, she finalized procedures for conference planning and led a committee that instituted a new program of continuing education called the "ALISE Academy."

From 2006 to 2007, Gross served as both the co-chair of the ALISE Conference Planning Committee and the co-convener of the ALISE Youth Services Special Interest Group. With the conference planning committee, she organized the curriculum vita and portfolio review sessions held at the 2007 ALISE annual conference.

With the youth services group, Gross was responsible for youth SIG sessions at the 2007 annual ALISE winter meeting. During this time, she established the ALISE/Linworth Youth Services Special Interest Group Paper Award along with FSU faculty members Latham and Nancy Everhart. The award recognizes an innovative research paper in youth services with a $1,000 prize. Gross co-chaired the award committee during its initial year (2007-2008). For the 2011 conference, Gross was chair of the ALISE Juried Paper Proposals Committee.

Gross received her doctorate in library and information science from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1998. She began teaching at the Florida State University School of Library and Information Studies in 1999. In 2001, she received the prestigious American Association of University Women Recognition Award for Emerging Scholars.

She has published extensively in the areas of information seeking behavior, library program and service evaluation, and information resources for youth. Her current projects include investigations into the information literacy needs of undergraduates and the HIV/AIDS content of materials developed for a young adult audience.

Gross' most recent books are "HIV/AIDS in Young Adult Novels: An Annotated Bibliography," co-authored with Annette Goldsmith and Debi Carruth (Scarecrow Press, 2010); "Studying Children's Questions: Information Seeking Behavior in School," (Scarecrow Press, 2006 ); and "Dynamic Youth Services through Outcome Based Planning and Evaluation," co-authored with Eliza Dresang and Leslie Holt (ALA Publications, 2006).

By Bob Branciforte
18 January 2011