Hastings to serve as School of Library and Information Sciences interim dean

Samantha Hastings, UNT associate   professor, has accepted an interim appointment to serve as dean of the School of Library and Information Sciences while a university search committee looks across the nation to find a new dean by fall 2005.

"The university is fortunate to have such an outstanding person to take on the leadership of the School of Library and Information Sciences," says Howard Johnson, UNT provost and vice president for academic affairs."I am convinced that Dr. Hastings will do a great job. I look forward to working with her."

Stepping into the deanship, Hastings replaces Philip Turner, who has served simultaneously as dean of the school and associate vice president for academic affairs for distance education since 1996. The university decided to separate the two positions when Turner's role in directing online academic programs as associate vice president began to expand.

Hastings career working with state and educational institutions across the country as a librarian, an administrator and an instructor, spans nearly three decades. For the last nine years, she has served on the UNT library and information sciences faculty. Prior to coming to UNT, she was a library program specialist in the Florida State Department and an adjunct instructor of information studies at Florida State University. She also worked as a librarian for the Florida Department of Natural Resources.

During her tenure at UNT, Hastings has obtained more than $1 million in grants including one from the Institute for Museum and Library Services in partnership with the African American Museum in Fair Park, the Dallas Museum of Art and the Denton Public Libraries. The program trained future digital image managers — curators who digitally preserve images of museum artifacts, paintings and sculptures. These grant projects included creating digital images for the museums and establishing a program with the Denton Public Libraries, which allowed low-income residents to digitally preserve their family histories, photographs and letters.

She was also a member of the UNT Ad Hoc Taskforce for Graduate Enrollment, whose guidelines have played a part in the continued growth of the university's graduate programs. She has also worked for four years as a senator in the UNT Faculty Senate and served on the UNT Library Committee, which acts as an advisory board for the university's dean of libraries.  She is a member of the University Research Committee.

This year, Hastings became president of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. The 67-year-old national organization brings together 4,000 information specialists in every field from medicine to education. She was also nominated for the 2003-04 Richard W. Lyman Humanities Award from the National Center for the Humanities. She received the Jean Gates distinguished alumni award and gave the Alice Smith lecture at the University of South Florida.

An expert in digital imaging and networking, Hastings has spoken as an authority on the retrieval of digital images and artwork at the Louvre in Paris, the National Gallery of Art in London and the Crimea Conference in Sudak, Ukraine — a premier, international librarian conference.

She received her bachelor's degree in English from the University of Arizona, master's degree in library science from the University of South Florida and doctoral degree in library and information science from Florida State University.

BY RUFUS COLEMAN rcoleman@unt.edu

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• Fireworks at Fouts the day before Independence Day
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