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Simmons Library School Professor Receives National "Distinguished Service" Award

Ching-chih Chen is Advocate and Leader in the Concept of a World Digital Library

BOSTON (March 25, 2008) — The American Library Association has named Ching-chih Chen, a professor in the Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science in Boston and an international leader in digital library research and development, as the recipient of its 2008 award for "distinguished service" to education for librarianship.

The American Library Association awarded Chen the Beta Phi Mu award, presented annually to a library school faculty member or individual for distinguished service in librarianship education.

The jury chair said the selection committee was "extremely impressed" with Chen's "profound impact on the field of global librarianship," as well as her devotion to her students and her exhaustive record of publications and presentations.

Chen has devoted major efforts in recent years to digital library research and development and the concept of a world digital library. Her Global Memory Net, a multi-year international digital library project supported by the National Science Foundation, was launched in 2006. Collaborators include UNESCO's Memory of the World and the Asian Division of the Library of Congress.

Currently Chen is leading a three-year National Science Foundation project related to digital imaging, and is co-principal investigator of the China-U.S. Million Book Digital Library Project, supported by the NSF and the Chinese Ministry of Education.

She was a member of the advisory board of the European Network of Excellence in Digital Libraries, and is on the steering or program committees of numerous digital library projects, including the Asian International Conference on Digital Libraries, the European Conference on Digital Libraries, the International Conference on Digital Libraries and the Russian Conference on Digital Libraries.

The American Library Association is the oldest, largest and most influential library association in the world, with nearly 65,000 members. The Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science is one of the oldest and largest graduate schools of library science in North America. The school has more than 9,000 alumni in library and information science positions around the world. Simmons College is a nationally recognized private university located in the heart of Boston.