SLM STAR EXHIBITION: October 2008

Blanche Woolls completed all of her degrees at Indiana University finishing her doctorate in 1973. She started her career as an elementary school librarian and worked her way up the career ladder to coordinator of libraries in Hammond, Indiana. Woolls joined the University of Pittsburgh faculty where she led the library certificate program, chaired the Department of Library Science, and served on the doctoral science committee. In 1997 she became the director of the School of Library and Information Science at San José State University and retired in 2005. She served as the president of the American Association of School Librarians and International Association of School Librarianship.

Bibliography:

Books

Woolls, B. & Loertscher, D. (Ed.). (2002). Information-rich environments: Blessing or curse: Papers of the Treasure Mountain Research Retreat #9, Brown County Indiana, November 2001. San José, CA: Hi Willow Research and Publishing.

Woolls, B. & Loertscher, D. (2002). Information literacy: A review of the research: A guide for practitioners and researchers (2nd ed.). San José, CA: Hi Willow Research and Publishing.

Woolls, B. & Sheldon, B. (2001). Delivering lifelong continuing professional education across space and time: The fourth world conference on continuing professional education for the library and information science professions. Munich: K.G. Saur.

Parts of Books

Woolls, B. (2006). Information and technology and the preparation of students for their role in a global society. In Proceedings of the 2006 Information Technology in Education: Ethics and Knowledge, Kunming, China, June 20, 2006 (pp. 27-32). Kunming, P. R. China: Yunnan Provincial Library.

Woolls, B. (2006). Information literacy in the information age: Preparing students for their role in a global society. In Nadzar, F. H. J., et. al. Information Literacy and Knowledge Society: Development, Changes, and Challenges. Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Literacy 14-15 June 2006, Hilton Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (pp. 1-9). Shah Alam, Malaysia: Faculty of Information Management, University of Technology MARA.

Woolls, B. (2006). Understanding the multiple faces of literacy: Librarian innovator and developer of thinking skills. In The multiple faces of literacy: Reading, knowing, doing. Paper presented at the International Association of School Librarianship Annual International Conference, Lisbon Portugal, July 6, 2006.

Woolls, B. & Loertscher, D. (2003). Distance education at San José State University. In D. Barron (Ed.), Benchmarks in distance education: The LIS experience (pp. 263-269). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

Woolls, B. Reference works (encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc.). In Encyclopedia of international media and communication v. 6 (pp. 71-80). Elsevier Science.

Woolls, B. & Loertscher, D. (2002). Information literacy: Helping librarians apply the research to teaching information skills to patrons: The importance of the human interface. In P. Ward (Ed.), Continuing professional education for the information society: The fifth world conference on continuing professional education for the library and information science professions. Munich: K.G. Saur.

Journal Articles

Woolls, B. & Loertscher, D. (2002). Accountability and the school teacher librarian. School Libraries in Canada, 22:2, 7-9.

Woolls, B. & Loertscher, D. (2002, May/June). Teenage users of libraries. Knowledge Quest, 30, 31-36.

Research Themes:

Blanche Woolls research themes tend to concentrate around:

· Information literacy

· Library management

· Librarian accountability

Summary of Contributions

Woolls has provided us with a wealth of information on information literacy, library management, and librarian accountability.

She demonstrated her leadership abilities through her presidency of the American Association of School Librarians and International Association of School Librarianship.