Double International Web Honors for Shodor
http://cserd.nsdl.org
The Webby Awards, the leading international honor for the Web, has recognized Shodor, a Durham based non profit organization that helps improve math and science education for students locally and nationally. Shodor was recognized in two categories as an Official Honoree, a distinction that recognizes work exhibiting remarkable achievement.

In the science category, Official Honoree distinction was given to Shodor’s Computational Science Education Reference Desk (CSERD) <http://cserd.nsdl.org>, a catalog of high quality interactive computer models and tools. CSERD is a Pathway portal of the National Science Digital Library and is funded by the National Science Foundation. All items are peer reviewed using a verification, validation and accreditation process.

In the education category, Official Honoree distinction was given to Shodor’s Interactivate site. Interactivate provides free web-based mathematics courseware for grades 3 - 12 and is used by students and educators to explore and practice mathematics on the computer - experimenting with different scenarios. Interactivate is developed in collaboration with classroom teachers, content experts, curriculum designers and educational technologists, with suggested lesson plans, discussions and supplemental materials - and supports NCTM standards for grades 3-12.

The growth of Shodor’s website has been phenomenal, generating more than 3.5 million page views per month by more than 1 million visitors.

The Webby Awards, hailed as the “Oscars of the Internet” by the New York Times, is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet, including Websites, Interactive Advertising, Online Film & Video, and Mobile Websites. The awards are judged by the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences, a globalorganization that includes David Bowie, Harvey Weinstein, Arianna Huffington, Matt Groening, Jamie Oliver, internet inventor Vinton Cerf, and RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser.

“The Webby Awards honors the outstanding work that is setting the standards for the Internet,” said David-Michel Davies, executive director of The Webby Awards. “Shodor’s Official Honoree selection is a testament to the skill, ingenuity, and vision of its creators.”

“If you look at the lists of honorees, we are among very good company,” said Shodor’s Executive Director, Dr. Robert Panoff. “You can see how a small organization in Durham competes well against the best nationally,” he added.

The 11th Annual Webby Awards received a record 8,000 entries from over 60 countries and all 50 states. Out more than 8,000 entries submitted, fewer than 15% received this honor and were deemed an Official Honoree.

Other NSDL Project and Partner Webby Honorees are . . .
The Rossetta Project <http://www.rosettaproject.org/> is a global collaboration of language specialists and native speakers building a publicly accessible online archive of all documented human languages.

The Exploratorium <http://www.exploratorium.edu> is the Museum of science, art and human perception.

DELOS/NSDL Summer School in Florence
<http://www.delos.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=568&Itemid=307>
DELOS, a Network of Excellence on Digital Libraries partially funded by the European Commission, and NSDL have joined forces in organizing a Summer School, Digital Libraries for the Digital Librarian Making the Journey from Traditional to Digital Libraries, to be held May 28 - June 2, 2007 in Florence, Italy.

The school intends to address some common concerns of cultural heritage institutions (such as libraries, archival institutions and museums) as they work together with information providers, publishers, publications suppliers to tackle the challenges and opportunities of the digital environment for the knowledge society. The digital medium is radically new for libraries, archives, museums and other information providers. The main aim of the School is to provide information professionals who intend to take leadership and responsibilities in the complex world of digital libraries with the knowledge of the technologies and the organizational issues involved in the transition from a traditional organization to a Digital Library, illustrating criteria and methods that exploit the strengths of digital libraries in a socio-economic and interdisciplinary manner.

This one-week intensive school will consist of ten half-day sessions that will include lectures, seminars, practical demonstrations, group work and field trips to cultural institutions. Distinguished lecturers from Europe and the United States will be addressing the following topics.

–Introduction to Digital Libraries
–Digitizing Information
–Digital Collections
–Describing Information
–Organizing the Digital Library
–Distributed Services and Identity Management
–Accessing the Repository
–Re-thinking the Role of Repositories
–Making the Library work for the User
–Scholarly Communication in the 21st Century
–Final Session: the (near) Future
–Field Trips

NEW: Call for Proposals: 2007 NSDL Annual Meeting
<http://nsdl.comm.nsdl.org/registration/?pager=228&PHPSESSID=1571772dfc8c620979366f4c6adb12a5>
Available at the Annual Meeting website. The 2007 meeting theme, Advancing NSDL Networks, reflects that from its inception, one of the many proof-of-concept ideas pursued during NSDL’s development was the highly distributed effort of creating not just a digital library, but also the social and organizational structures that enable the library to meet the needs of various stakeholders. The concept has become a reality as partnerships have solidified into a network within NSDL and between NSDL and other organizations. The Planning Committee encourages proposals that address all aspects and nuances of technical and social networks, that demonstrate projects’ achievements, and that highlight new ways networks advance and serve NSDL and its many audiences.

Important Dates
Proposal Submission Opens: 17 April 2007
Proposal Submission Deadline: 4 May 2007
Presenter Notification: Mid-June 2007
Check the Annual Meeting website for a complete list of deadlines