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    Athena Salaba headshot

    Athena Salaba, Ph.D.

    Associate Professor
    Campus:
    Kent
    Contact Information
    Email:
    asalaba@kent.edu
    Phone:
    330-672-0023
    Personal Website:
    https://www.catclassintro.org/athenasalaba

    Biography

    Dr. Athena Salaba has been a member of the iSchool faculty since January 2004. She holds a Ph.D. in library and information studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison; and a M.L.S. and B.A. in cultural anthropology from Kent State University.

    Her areas of research include the organization of information, metadata, knowledge organization systems, subject access to information, conceptual modeling of bibliographic data, intercultural awareness of information professionals, user-information interactions, and user experience studies. She collaborated with iSchool Professor Yin Zhang, Ph.D., on an IMLS-funded research project on FRBR implementation to develop effective library catalogs. She is the recipient of the Bohdan S. Wynar Research Paper Competition Award (Yin Zhang and Athena Salaba), Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE), 2009. She is the author of several refereed journal articles, books, book chapters, conference papers and has presented internationally. She is the co-author of Implementing FRBR in Libraries: Key Issues and Future Directions (New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, 2009; with Y. Zhang) and Cataloging and Classification: An Introduction, 4th and 5th edition (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers; with L.M. Chan). She has served as the chair of IFLA’s Subject Analysis and Access Section, co-chair and secretary of the IFLA Working Group on the Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Records (FRSAR), chair of the ALA’s Subject Analysis Committee (SAC), and member of the IFLA FRBR Review Group and Bibliographic Conceptual Models (BCM) Review Group, and member and chair of the ALA Committee on Accreditation.  She is serving as an IFLA  Division Chair and member of the IFLA Professional Council, and member of the Board of Directors and treasurer of the International Society for Knowledge Organization (ISKO). 
     

    *The School of Information faculty are superstars in the field. Therefore, it is impossible to list all of the great work they do on one page. Listed below is a small selection of recent work. Further information can be viewed in Dr. Salaba’s CV (found below), on her Google Scholar page, on ResearchGate, or on her personal website.


    Teaching/Advising

    Academic Program
    Library & Information Science

    Cultural Heritage Informatics Information and Knowledge Organization


    Research Specialties

    Information BehaviorDiscovery SystemsInformation System DesignUser InterfacesInteractive Information RetrievalCatalogingClassificationIndexingMetadataCross-Language Information RetrievalTaxonomiesStandards & CompetenciesCurriculumInformation EthicsCritical Librarianship


    Selected Publications

    Salaba, Athena & L.M. Chan. (2023). Cataloging and Classification: An Introduction. 5th ed. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

    Golub, Koraljka, Claudio Gnoli, Daivid Haynes, Athena Salaba, Ali Shiri, aida Slavic. (2024). Library catalogue’s search interface: Making the most of subject metadata. Knowledge Organization

    Salaba, Athena and Maja Žumer. (2021). Reshaping the Identity of Bibliographic Information in the Digital Age.  Libraries and Information Institutions in the Digital Age (LIDA), Dubrovnik, Croatia, 19-22 April 2021

    Salaba, A. & Merčun, T. (2018). Visualizations of bibliographic information: A user experience study. Journal of Librarianship & Information Science, 52(1), 271-287. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961000618804014

    Salaba, A., Merčun, T., & Aalberg, T. (2018). Complexity of work families and entity-based visualization. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 56(8). https://doi.org/10.1080/01639374.2018.1529008

    Žumer, Maja, Maria Lei Zeng, & Athena Salaba). (2012). FRSAD: Conceptual modeling of aboutness. Third Millennium Cataloging Series. Libraries Unlimited. ISBN: 978-1598847949

    Zhang, Yin, and Athena Salaba. (2009). What is next for FRBR? A Delphi study. The Library Quarterly, 79(2), 233-255. [Received the prestigious 2009 ALISE/Bohdan S. Wynar Research Paper Award]


    Awards/Achievements

    • University of Washington, Information School, Visiting Scholar, Autumn 2017
    • Intercultural Faculty Scholars, Kent State University, 2014 - 2015
    • Bohdan S. Wynar/ALISE Research Paper Competition Award, 2009 (Yin Zhang and Athena Salaba, winners), Association of Library and Information Science Education (ALISE)

    Selected Professional Service

    • Co-chair and secretary of the IFLA Working Group on the Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Records (FRSAR)
    • Chair of the ALA Subject Analysis Committee (SAC) 
    • Member of the IFLA FRBR Review Group
    • Serves as Member of the IFLA’s Bibliographic Conceptual Models (BCM) Review Group
    • Chair of the IFLA Subject Analysis and Access (SAA) section
    • Member of the Board of Directors and Treasurer of the International Society for Knowledge Organization (ISKO)
    • Appointed Member and Chair of the ALA Committee on Accreditation
    • IFLA Division Chair and Member of the Professional Council

    Affiliations

    • American Library Association (ALA)
    • Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE)
    • International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)
    • International Society for Knowledge Organization (ISKO)

    Education

    Ph.D. in Library and Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison
    M.L.S. from Kent State University
    B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Kent State University

    Expertise

    Organization Of Information
    Metadata
    Knowledge Organization Systems
    Conceptual Modeling of Information
    User-Information Interactions
    User Interface Evaluation
    User Experience Studies

    Documents

    PDF icon Salaba_CV_2024.pdf
    School of Information

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