iSchool Blog

By: Allison Druin, Associate Dean for Research, iSchool

My mother was an artist and my father a scientist. When I was young, I thought what they did for work was very different. My mother was a jeweler who spent countless hours in her studio bending tiny wires and melting layers of glass, somehow creating priceless enamel jewelry and goblets. My father was a chemical engineer who went off to work each day to “mix chemicals” and have meetings, somehow inventing plastics for everything from space suits to soda bottles. As I grew older, I came to realize that they shared one important aspect of their work. They both believed that the first step to making something special happen begins with finding an amazing idea. Therefore, for my mother the jeweler that meant envisioning the interchange between color and form, and then pursing what was possible with colored glass on metal. For my father the chemical engineer that meant imagining the kinds of plastics people needed in their lives.

Their respect for ideas and their excitement for envisioning new possibilities made quite an impression on me as a child who would later become the family professor. Today it makes sense that when I build new technologies for children, much of my research is not only focused on what I build, but how I build it. That path to finding those important first ideas fascinates me as much as the end technology.

As the iSchool’s new Associate Dean for Research, I’ve come to realize that this fascination with how ideas are born will serve me well as I highlight with this blog the new ideas and the important research of our faculty, staff, and students. These talented, curious, and innovative thinkers are leading the way in everything from understanding issues concerning social computing to exploring the future of libraries and archives.

What brings all of these thought leaders together is the goal to transform that connection people have with information. Whether it is looking at how people search for and manage information, or building a new digital archive, or even looking at the impact that this new technology can have on how it is adopted to how it affects public policy—these are all important ways our faculty, staff, and students look to transform the information landscape. With this new blog, I will tell the research stories of our college: how our new ideas are evolving, what impact is being felt from these ideas, and what might our future world look like because of this work.

Most importantly, I hope it will lead you to taking this research journey with us. Together we will explore the diverse and deep research initiatives spread across our many centers and labs. We will highlight the strong interdisciplinary collaborations our college has with industry, non-profit, and government partners. This blog will ask you to consider a diverse landscape of ideas that could inspire and challenge your thinking about the future.