UA Professor Wins Cross Cultural Research Award

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Dr. Melissa Johnston, assistant professor and school library media program coordinator for the School of Library and Information Studies at The University of Alabama, was named a recipient of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology’s Cross Cultural Research Award at its international convention general session in Jacksonville, Fla.

Johnston collaborated with Dr. Lucy Santos Green, of Georgia Southern University, on a study titled “Global Perspectives’ Exploring School-Based Brazilian Librarianship through Institutional Ethnography.” They received a plaque and a monetary gift from AECT for their research.

In 2013, Johnston and Green conducted institutional ethnography study of school-based Brazilian librarianship in south Brazil. The research discovered the challenges faced by Brazilian school libraries, such as institutional barriers to collaboration, division of instructional duties, access to materials and staffing.

The findings also reflected the social and economic disparity between private schools and government-funded public schools, as well as Brazilian society as a whole.

AECT is a major organization for those actively involved in the designing of instruction and a systematic approach to learning.

Johnston earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Georgia and her doctorate in library and information studies from Florida State University.

The School of Library and Information Studies is housed in UA’s College of Communication and Information Sciences.