Athena Salaba, Ph.D.

Dr. Athena Salaba has been a member of the iSchool faculty since January 2004. She holds a Ph.D. in library and information studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison; and a M.L.S. and B.A. in cultural anthropology from Kent State University.

Her areas of research include the organization of information, metadata, knowledge organization systems, subject access to information, conceptual modeling of bibliographic data, intercultural awareness of information professionals, user-information interactions, and user experience studies. She collaborated with iSchool Professor Yin Zhang, Ph.D., on an IMLS-funded research project on FRBR implementation to develop effective library catalogs. She is the recipient of the Bohdan S. Wynar Research Paper Competition Award (Yin Zhang and Athena Salaba), Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE), 2009. She is the author of several refereed journal articles, books, book chapters, conference papers and has presented internationally. She is the co-author of Implementing FRBR in Libraries: Key Issues and Future Directions (New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, 2009; with Y. Zhang) and Cataloging and Classification: An Introduction, 4th and 5th edition (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers; with L.M. Chan). She has served as the chair of IFLA’s Subject Analysis and Access Section, co-chair and secretary of the IFLA Working Group on the Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Records (FRSAR), chair of the ALA’s Subject Analysis Committee (SAC), and member of the IFLA FRBR Review Group and Bibliographic Conceptual Models (BCM) Review Group, and member and chair of the ALA Committee on Accreditation.  She is serving as an IFLA  Division Chair and member of the IFLA Professional Council, and member of the Board of Directors and treasurer of the International Society for Knowledge Organization (ISKO). 
 

*The School of Information faculty are superstars in the field. Therefore, it is impossible to list all of the great work they do on one page. Listed below is a small selection of recent work. Further information can be viewed in Dr. Salaba’s CV (found below), on her Google Scholar page, on ResearchGate, or on her personal website.

Teaching/Advising

Academic Program
Library & Information Science

Cultural Heritage Informatics Information and Knowledge Organization

Research Specialties

Information BehaviorDiscovery SystemsInformation System DesignUser InterfacesInteractive Information RetrievalCatalogingClassificationIndexingMetadataCross-Language Information RetrievalTaxonomiesStandards & CompetenciesCurriculumInformation EthicsCritical Librarianship

Selected Publications

Salaba, Athena & L.M. Chan. (2023). Cataloging and Classification: An Introduction. 5th ed. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Golub, Koraljka, Claudio Gnoli, Daivid Haynes, Athena Salaba, Ali Shiri, aida Slavic. (2024). Library catalogue’s search interface: Making the most of subject metadata. Knowledge Organization

Salaba, Athena and Maja Žumer. (2021). Reshaping the Identity of Bibliographic Information in the Digital Age.  Libraries and Information Institutions in the Digital Age (LIDA), Dubrovnik, Croatia, 19-22 April 2021

Salaba, A. & Merčun, T. (2018). Visualizations of bibliographic information: A user experience study. Journal of Librarianship & Information Science, 52(1), 271-287. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961000618804014

Salaba, A., Merčun, T., & Aalberg, T. (2018). Complexity of work families and entity-based visualization. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 56(8). https://doi.org/10.1080/01639374.2018.1529008

Žumer, Maja, Maria Lei Zeng, & Athena Salaba). (2012). FRSAD: Conceptual modeling of aboutness. Third Millennium Cataloging Series. Libraries Unlimited. ISBN: 978-1598847949

Zhang, Yin, and Athena Salaba. (2009). What is next for FRBR? A Delphi study. The Library Quarterly, 79(2), 233-255. [Received the prestigious 2009 ALISE/Bohdan S. Wynar Research Paper Award]

Awards/Achievements

• University of Washington, Information School, Visiting Scholar, Autumn 2017
• Intercultural Faculty Scholars, Kent State University, 2014 - 2015
• Bohdan S. Wynar/ALISE Research Paper Competition Award, 2009 (Yin Zhang and Athena Salaba, winners), Association of Library and Information Science Education (ALISE)

Selected Professional Service

• Co-chair and secretary of the IFLA Working Group on the Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Records (FRSAR)
• Chair of the ALA Subject Analysis Committee (SAC) 
• Member of the IFLA FRBR Review Group
• Serves as Member of the IFLA’s Bibliographic Conceptual Models (BCM) Review Group
• Chair of the IFLA Subject Analysis and Access (SAA) section
• Member of the Board of Directors and Treasurer of the International Society for Knowledge Organization (ISKO)
• Appointed Member and Chair of the ALA Committee on Accreditation
• IFLA Division Chair and Member of the Professional Council

Affiliations

• American Library Association (ALA)
• Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE)
• International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)
• International Society for Knowledge Organization (ISKO)