SCHOLARS IN RESIDENCE:

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• Past Follett Chairs

Follett Chair

Steven L. Herb Accepts Follett Chair

Dominican University's Graduate School of Library and Information Science has appointed Steven L. Herb to the Follett Chair in Library and Information Science for the 2007-2008 academic year. This prestigious appointment is one of only four chairs in library science in the country.

Herb is currently head of the education and behavioral sciences library and affiliate professor of language and literacy education at Penn State University. He is also director of the Pennsylvania Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.

Co-author of The Nittany Lion: An Illustrated Tale, a history of Penn State's school symbol, and two children's literature textbooks, Using Children's Books in Preschool Settings and Connecting Fathers, Children and Reading, Herb has a special interest in storytelling. He was named Penn State's Most Innovative Faculty Member in 2000 on the basis of his first-year seminar, "Stories and Storytelling: How Humans Become People"

Herb is past president of the Association for Library Service to Children and a three-term chair of the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Committee. For the past six years, he has led the team that developed the online Literacy and Cultural Heritage Map of Pennsylvania, which received the 2005 Boorstin Award from the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. Last year, his family literacy site at the Pennsylvania Center for the Book, developed in partnership with his wife Sara Willoughby-Herb, was used in connection with summer reading programs in 32 states across the country.

Herb succeeds Edward J. Valauskas whose appointment as the second holder of the Follett Chair ended in spring 2007. Professor Martin Dillon was the first Follett appointment in 2002.

The Follett Chair is endowed through a gift from the Follett Corporation, a leading provider of educational solutions, services and products that empower schools, libraries, colleges, students and lifelong learners.

Read about the past GSLIS Follett Chairs