The 2009 VALA Student Award for a student at Monash University goes to Iris Perkins.
Iris completed her Monash Master of Information Management and Systems (MIMS) degree last November, after studying part-time since 2004. She had an overall average of over 82% across the units she had taken, including eight ‘High Distinctions’ and three ‘Distinctions’.
Iris had a background in school librarianship, having gained her Bachelor of Education (School Librarianship) from Monash Gippsland in the 1980s. More recently, she has been working in academic libraries, and is currently the Campus Librarian/Library Manager at the Shepparton Campus of La Trobe University.
Iris has a wide interest across the information and knowledge management field, and has used her studies as a way of expanding her understanding of the wider information field. In her MIMS degree, Iris has undertaken professional tracks in electronic recordkeeping and archiving and in knowledge management. She has completed two special project units—one on digital preservation, and the other on the use of e-books by nursing students at her library. For her electives, she has taken one unit on the ‘Multimedia Industry’ and another on ‘History and the Museum.’ This clearly demonstrates Iris’s breadth of interest in information management.
Her outstanding performance is evidenced through the following comments from her project supervisors:
For her project on digital preservation:
‘A well written and presented literature review, that clearly demonstrates the depth of knowledge you have gained in this area and shows that you are capable of synthesising and distilling a clear argument from a range of published sources – an especially tricky task given the burgeoning and diverse literature available on the topic of digital preservation. Your review was extremely readable – the nature and number of the notes I made on my copy is testament to the interesting questions raised in your collation of the literature.
For her project on e-book usage by nursing students at La Trobe University Library, Shepparton:
‘Her work was thorough and original; very little objective research has been undertaken to determine readers’ perceptions of e-books. She worked conscientiously with minimal supervision, and produced a publishable conference paper as a result. Her findings, contrary to the market research emanating from vendors, were important. She found that most students did not use e-books unless they had no alternatives, and that the lecturing staff were an important influence on whether students adopted ebooks or not.’
Monash University staff said that Iris’s demonstrated commitment to expanding her horizons in the information arena, and her outstanding academic performance, make her an ideal candidate for the VALA award.
Congratulations, Iris!