PITT PROFESSOR WINS OUTSTANDING TEXTBOOK AWARD

PITTSBURGH, Mar. 27 -- Robert R. Korfhage, professor in the Department of Information Science and Telecommunications at Pitt's School of Information Sciences, has won a 1997 Association of American Publishers award for outstanding professional, reference or scholarly textbooks. His work titled "Information Storage and Retrieval" won in the category for outstanding computer science textbooks.

"This is the first major textbook on information retrieval in several years," said Korfhage. "The primary audience is seniors and graduate students in information science and computer science. The publisher is also marketing it to professionals who have been out of school a few years and are just now getting involved in information retrieval, through the web or otherwise."

To select the award winners, the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers convenes a panel of judges from the publishing industry and the industrial, medical and scientific communities. The winning books and journals are chosen from more than 300 professional and scholarly works nominated in 30 categories across the spectrum of science, technology, business and the humanities.

Korfhage joined the faculty at Pitt in 1986, but has been teaching and researching information retrieval since 1965. His current research interest focuses on visual interfaces for information retrieval. "Information Storage and Retrieval" is published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., and is the tenth textbook written by Korfhage.

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