rieh at umich.edu 734-647-8040 Website

Soo Young Rieh is an Assistant Professor at the School of Information , University of Michigan , where she teaches information seeking behavior, use of information, and evaluation of systems and services. Soo’s research centers on understanding people's interaction with information in various information seeking environments such as information retrieval systems, Web, libraries, and home. She has conducted and published research on: Web information quality and cognitive authority; information seeking and searching on the Web; search query strategies and patterns in Web search engines; evaluation of information retrieval systems; classification of interactions with information; user-librarian interaction in the digital reference environments. As a Principal Investigator of the MIRACLE Project, Soo is particularly interested in identifying the factors of success in institutional repositories from multiple perspectives including administrators, faculty contributors, and users. She is currently conducting another research project which examines college students’ credibility judgments in both school and everyday contexts. Previously Soo held a position as a human factors research engineer at Excite@Home Search and Directory Group. She earned her PhD in Communication, Information, and Library Studies from Rutgers University . She is a recipient of several prestigious awards, including the John Wiley Best JASIST Paper Award (ASIS&T, 2005), the Eugene Garfield-ALISE Doctoral Dissertation Award (ALISE, 2002), and the Doctoral Student Best Poster Award (ALISE, 2000).

ylime at umich.edu 734-763-3581 Website

KAREN MARKEY is a Professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. She holds degrees from the Johns Hopkins University (BA) and Syracuse University (MLS, PhD). Prior to joining the faculty at Michigan in 1987, she was a Senior Research Scientist at the OCLC Online Computer Library Center. Karen has conducted research in the areas of subject searching in online catalogs, subject access to visual resources collections, subject authority control, enhancing bibliographic databases using a library classification, and library-user education. In the MIRACLE Project she is interested in the ability of contributors to formulate quality metadata and how end users learn about and use institutional repositories. She also staffs a National Science Foundation-sponsored examination of patent searching. Karen is the author of four books, over a dozen major research reports, and several dozens of journal articles and conference proceedings papers. Supported by a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services, she recently completed the LUMENS Project which evaluated the usefulness of multimedia production for library-user education. At the University of Michigan, she teaches organization of information, online searching, library automation, and multimedia production.

yakel at umich.edu 734-763-3569

Elizabeth Yakel is an associate professor in the University of Michigan , School of Information , teaching in the areas of archives and records management and preservation. Her research interests include access and usability to archival materials, particularly focusing on the digital realm.  In the MIRACLE project, she is interested in the role of institutional archives vis-à-vis institutional repositories (IRs) and the ability of IRs to establish viable preservation policies and regimes.  Yakel is also currently PI on another research project, “Developing Standardized Metrics: Towards Understanding the Impact of College and University Archives and Special Collections on Scholarship, Teaching, and Learning ,” funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.  Working with researchers from the University of Toronto and the University of North Carolina , this project is attempting to spark a culture of assessment in archives through the development of validated data collection tools that enable repositories to better evaluate use and user services.  The goal is to create a robust data set for administrative and professional benchmarking as well as for research.  Yakel has published widely on many aspects of archival use and user services in major archival journals including American Archivist, Archivaria, and Archival Science.  She is currently an Editor-in-Chief for Archival Science.  Yakel is co-editing an upcoming book, Measure for Measure: Toward a Culture of Assessment in Archives and Special Collections which will be published by the Society of American Archivists.

bstjean at umich.edu

Beth St. Jean is currently a first-year doctoral student at the University of Michigan ’s School of Information and a Graduate Student Research Assistant for the IMLS-funded MIRACLE (Making Institutional Repositories A Collaborative Learning Environment) project. She holds a Bachelor's Degree in Mathematics from Smith College and a Master's Degree in Information (Library & Information Services specialization) from the School of Information . Before coming to the School, Beth worked in the fields of financial and statistical analysis for more than 15 years.

xingyao at umich.edu

Xingxing Yao is currently a first-year doctoral student at the University of Michigan ’s School of Information . Her research interests include digital libraries, information organization and user studies. Xingxing holds a Bachelor of Arts (2002) and a Master of Management Science (2005) in library science from Peking University. Before joining the School of Information, Xingxing went to the School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University at Bloomington. She was a fellow of the Digital Libraries Education Program and received a Master of Library Science degree in 2007.

jhkz at umich.edu

Jihyun Kim is an SI doctoral student who has been involved in research projects on the usability of access systems for archival information. She has participated in a research funded by National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) on the usability of archival access tools. She has also examined search interfaces of DSpace and Eprints institutional repositories and identified problems with their interfaces. Currently, Kim works on her dissertation, which investigates factors that motivate or impede faculty contribution to institutional repositories.