Gary Marchionini

Gary Marchionini (born 1949) is an American information scientist and educator. His research focuses on human-information interaction, digital libraries and exploratory search. He is the Cary C. Boshamer (Distinguished) Professor at the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and served as Dean of the School from 2010 to 2024.

Photo Available @ https://www.asist.org/2024/06/24/four-members-chosen-for-the-2024-asist-fellowship/

Life

Gary Marchionini was a first-generation college student at Western Michigan University, where he double-majored in Mathematics and English, earning a B.A. in 1971. He first became interested in programming while teaching mathematics at his old junior high school (East Detroit, MI). The school presented him with four teletype machines and asked if he could do something with them. He began teaching his students programming and incorporating drill and practice exercises in his classes.[1] Marchionini served as math specialist at the Detroit Center for Professional Growth and Development (1978-1981) and received a PhD in 1981 from Wayne State University in Curriculum Development: Mathematics Education. His thesis was titled Computer Enhanced Practice and Introductory Algebra.[2]

He is married to Suzanne Marchionini.[3]

Contributions

Following his Ph.D., Marchionini joined Wayne State University (1982-83) and then the University of Maryland (1983-1989) as an Assistant Professor, receiving tenure and promotion to Associate Professor there in 1989. He was promoted to Professor in 1995. He was a member of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory (1983-1998) and directed the Digital Library Research Group (1996-1998) at UMD. In 1998 Marchionini became the Cary C. Boshamer Professor at the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There, Marchionini headed the Interaction Design Laboratory (1998-2012) and the Center for Information Impact (later the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life: CITAP). He became Dean of SILS in 2010. He served as Dean until February 2024.

Marchionini is the P.I. of several grant projects:

Principal Investigator, "Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life," funded by the Knight Foundation, $5,000,000, 2019-2025
Principal Investigator, "Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life," funded by the Luminate Foundation, $750,000, 2019-2022
Principal Investigator, "Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life," funded by the Hewlett Foundation, $600,000, 2019- 2022
Principal Investigator for North America, "i4G: iSchools' Identity, Interactions and Impact," Mellon Foundation, $600,000 to iSchool Consortium ($160,000 to UNC), 2019-2021
Principal Investigator, "Provision of Library and Information Center Support Services to the EPA Library in North Carolina," EPA Contract EP-D-15-013, $387,467 (April 1 - September 30, 2020)
Principal Investigator, "Curating for Data Quality Workshop," National Science Foundation, $50,000, 2012
Principal Investigator, "III-Small: Result Space Support for Personal and Group Information Seeking Over Time,"[4] National Science Foundation, $448,071, 2008-2011
Principal Investigator, "Information Seeking Support Systems Workshop," National Science Foundation, $49,950, 2008-2009
Principal Investigator, "Preserving Video Objects and Context: A Demonstration [VidArch] Project," National Science Foundation & Library of Congress, $400,000, 2005-2006

Marchionini was elected and served as ASIS&T President, 2009-2010. He has been a Director-at-Large of ASIS&T (1998-2001) and the iSchools Executive Committee (2018-2021). He chaired the ERIC Advisory Board in 2008, and served for ten years as the Director of Evaluation for the Perseus Project (a digital library devoted to classical culture) (1989-2000). Marchionini serves as Co-Editor-in-Chief of two journals: Data and Information Management, and Journal of Information Science Theory and Practice, and earlier served as Editor-in-Chief of ACM Transactions on Information Systems (2002-2008).

Publications

Marchionini has published over 200 articles, chapters and reports in a variety of books and journals.

Marchionini, G. (2018). How will Google’s innovation continue beyond its 20th year? The Conversation. https://doi.org/10.64628/AAI.6efe7yunw
Marchionini, G. (2012). Award of Merit acceptance speech: Bridges, linchpins and membranes: From I to We. Bulletin of ASIST 38(2): 19-21. https://doi.org/10.1002/bult.2012.1720380206
Marchionini, G. (2010). Information Concepts: From Books to Cyberspace Identities. Morgan-Claypool.
Marchionini, G., Wildemuth, B.M. and Geisler, G. (2006). The Open Video Digital Library: A Möbius strip of research and practice. JASIST 57(12): 1629-1643. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.20336
Marchionini, G. (April 5, 2004). "From Information Retrieval to Information Interaction." Keynote at European Conference on Information Retrieval.[5]
Marchionini, G. (Fall 2000). Evaluating Digital Libraries: A Longitudinal and Multifaceted View. Library Trends 49(2): 304-333.
Hert, Carol A. and Marchionini, G. (1997). Seeking Statistical Information in Federal Websites: Users, Tasks, Strategies, and Design Recommendations. Report to BLS.[6]
Marchionini, G. (1998). "Digital Library Research and Development". In Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science.
Gary Marchionini, Catherine Plaisant, Anita Komlodi. (1998). Interfaces and tools for the Library of Congress National Digital Library Program. Information Processing & Management 34(5): 535-555, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0306-4573(98)00020-X
Marchionini, G. (1995). Resource Search and Discovery. Getty AHIP paper.[7]
Marchionini, G. (1995). Information Seeking in Electronic Environments. Cambridge University Press.

Awards

ASIS&T Fellow, 2024
ASIS&T Distinguished Member, 2024
ASIST SIG USE Outstanding Contributions to Information Behavior Award, 2014
ASIST Award of Merit, 2011
Google Faculty Research Award (with Felix Portnoy), 2010
UNC Faculty Award for Excellence in Doctoral Mentoring, 2010
UNC SILS Outstanding Teaching Award, 2009
Google Research Award, 2007-08
Jesse H. Shera Award for Distinguished Published Research, 2007
Contributions in Information Science & Technology Award, Los Angeles Chapter of the American Society for Information Science (LACASIS&T), 2006
IBM Faculty Research Award (with Yaxiao Song), 2006-07
Best JASIS&T Paper, 2003: "Co-evolution of user and organizational interfaces"
Distinguished Lectureship Award, New Jersey ASIST Chapter, 2002
Frederick G. Kilgour Award for Research in Library and Information Technology, ALA LITA, 2000
ASIS Research in Information Science Award, 1996
Best JASIS Paper, 1990: "Information seeking strategies of novices using a full-text electronic encyclopedia"

Life

Contributions

Publications

Awards

Further Reading