AkLA has established a scholarship program to support the education of librarians for Alaska’s libraries, including school libraries. The stated purpose is to provide financial assistance to worthy students pursuing graduate studies in Library Science and to encourage graduates to return to Alaska to work in professional library positions. Preference is given to qualified applicants meeting the federal requirements of Alaska Native ethnicity.
Three scholarships of $4,000 each may be awarded: one for a Master’s Degree candidate, one for School Library Media Certification (the B. Jo Morse Scholarship), and a third from either category.
To be eligible for the scholarship, an applicant must be an Alaskan resident who:
possesses a Bachelor’s Degree or higher from an accredited college or university;
is eligible for acceptance, or is currently enrolled, in a graduate program in Library and Information Science leading to a Master’s Degree or School Library Media Certification, from a university program accredited by the American Library Association;
is or will be a student during the academic year, semester, or academic quarter for which the scholarship is received; and
makes a commitment to work in an Alaskan library for a minimum of one year after graduation as a paid employee or volunteer, or for two semesters for one semester’s financial assistance.
Completed applications must be received by January 15 of the award year. If you are interested in applying, copies of the guidelines and application forms are available online at http://akla.org/scholarships/
If you have questions about graduate library studies or would like paper copies of the scholarship application, contact:
AkLA Scholarship Committee Alaska State Library P.O. Box 110571, Juneau, AK 99811-0571 (907) 465-2458 or 1-888-820-4525 akla.scholarship@alaska.gov
In honor of International Open Access Week, Metadata Services Librarian Erik Carlson gave a very informative overview of Open Access (OA) in general and also spoke about his work with ScholarWorks, UA’s institutional repository. Erik spoke about the different kinds of OA access (gratis vs. libre, green vs. gold), copyright and licensing issues, and subject and institutional repositories and also provided links to further resources about Open Access. Thanks Erik!
If you are interested in electronic resources, the Electronic Resources and Libraries conference is a fantastic learning opportunity. They are offering travel grants for two library school students to attend the 2015 conference in Austin, TX.
Students! Win an amazing opportunity to learn from and network with bright and experienced e-resources management and digital services professionals at ER&L 2015. Learn more about the returning 2015 ER&L + Taylor and Francis Student Travel Award including eligibility, application and the past winners. http://electroniclibrarian.org/erlplus/tandfstudent/
Here’s Lyon during the conference. I walked almost this far up the hill but not quite.
In August, when I arrived in Lyon, France, for the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) conference, it was my first trip abroad and I didn’t know much about IFLA. A month later, I’m having a hard time separating the newness of the travel experience from the conference itself, but here’s my attempt.
The theme of this year’s conference was “Libraries, Citizens, Societies: Confluence for Knowledge,” so named because Lyon is at the confluence of the Rhône and Saône rivers. Including this year’s, France has hosted the annual IFLA conference six times since IFLA’s founding in 1927. IFLA is a nonprofit organization that has evolved from mainly a European federation of library associations to a worldwide group that in 1976 added institutional memberships and more recently individual memberships. Members are still predominantly organizations (including the American Library Association), and the conference is probably of most value to people conducting IFLA business, including this year’s “Lyon Declaration on Access to Information and Development,” which calls on member states of the United Nations “to acknowledge that access to information, and the skills to use it effectively, are required for sustainable development.” The signing of this document was quite the buzz at the conference. Even though I’m not an IFLA member and not involved in signing international declarations, the conference was a valuable experience.
The convention center was a half-hour walk from my hotel through Parc de la Tête d’Or (Golden Head Park), the largest urban park in France, very lovely, and very loved, judging from throngs of families, joggers, bicyclists, and walking commuters. The convention center sits between the edge of the park and the Rhône River.
For a sense of the conference’s internationality, when I introduced myself to the person next to me at the opening plenary, I learned she was the librarian at the Parliamentary Institute of Cambodia.
Plenary speeches were in a steep amphitheater and in the language of the speaker. It took considerable time to stand in line for a translation headset, climb up to an available seat, listen to the talk, climb back down, get in line to return the headset, and then get to the first program session. (Session presentations were all in English.) As a result, I did not attend all plenaries.
On August 18, I was part of a panel presenting on health literacy. My half-hour presentation was called “Medical Library Support for Peer Language Navigators in Anchorage, Alaska: Partnering to Help Individuals with Limited English Proficiency Find Reliable, Culturally Relevant Health Information.” Other presentation topics included an outreach project to get current health information to health workers in rural Uganda, a McGill University study of medical librarians’ use of critical appraisal of the literature, medical librarians’ role in health promotion in Iran, and health literacy in Turkey. Unfortunately, our morning session overlapped with a plenary speech by Princess Laurentien of the Netherlands on libraries and literacy, so attendance wasn’t what it could have been, but by the end, as people drifted in after the plenary, there were over 55 people in the room. After the session, the health literacy panelists, along with section committee members, went out to lunch and had a nice visit, doing our best to communicate with each other in our respective languages. The dozen or so people at the table were from Uganda, Iran, Turkey, Sweden, Finland, Ireland, Germany, Canada, and the U.S.
I attended sessions covering a range of topics: blending pedagogy with Maori traditions and worldview in New Zealand, a massive digitization project cleaning and photographing indigenous objects in Taiwan (I was surprised to learn there are 16 indigenous groups in Taiwan), helping Manitoba’s indigenous students (predominantly Cree, Ojibwe, Sioux, Inuit, and Métis) feel welcome and successful at the University of Manitoba, identifying and archiving historical photographs of indigenous groups of the Cordillera Region of the Philippines, cooperation between public libraries and schools in the Netherlands, building literacy in rural Ethiopia, a family literacy program in Australia, and others.
I think what I gained most from the conference was the opportunity to meet so many people from so many countries and also the realization that libraries and librarians around the world grapple with very similar issues.
As a side note, I’d been told over and over that Lyon is the gastronomic capital of France, possibly the world, and I was ready to be blown away by the food. Perhaps my expectations were too high, or perhaps I tended to choose the wrong restaurant or the wrong menu item, but other than an amazing apple tarte tatin I was underwhelmed by Lyon dining. It made me realize how many good restaurants we have in Anchorage. Lyon is a lovely city, though, and I hope to return someday.
Due to a conflict with another library event on October 10th, we are rescheduling the October FLIP meeting to October 24th, 12-1.
At this month’s meeting we’ll be discussing Open Access, and Erik Carlson, Metadata Services Librarian at the Consortium Library, will be speaking about open access in relation to ScholarWorks, the university’s institutional repository.
Interested in book and serial acquisition or issues in scholarly publishing? EBSCO is offering a scholarship to attend the 34th annual Charleston Conference, in Charleston, South Carolina, November 5-8, 2014. This scholarship is open to para-professionals as well as librarians with the MLIS degree.
EBSCO Charleston Conference Scholarship
Scholarship Amount: up to $1,000 Application Deadline: Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Applicants must:
Currently work as a librarian or para-professional
Provide one professional recommendation
Provide a Curriculum Vitae
Submit short essay (up to 1,000 words) on the following topic: Please describe three professional objectives and how attending the Charleston Conference will help you to achieve them.
All application documents should be sent electronically to Kate Burgess at EBSCO (kburgess@ebsco.com) by October 1, 2014. Scholarship money must be used to attend the 2014 Charleston Conference.
Hello, and welcome to a new school year! We’ve set up our meeting schedule for the year and are busily planning topics for our upcoming meetings. We will be meeting monthly every 2nd Friday (unless otherwise indicated) from 12-1 pm in the Consortium Library. See the sidebar to the right of this page for the meeting schedule. (Parking is always free on Fridays!) We’re also looking into the possibility of conducting meetings online, so people outside of the Anchorage area can participate. Stay tuned for more information on that.
We do need your help though. We would really like to know what topics you are interested in discussing or learning more about. And we’d love to hear about what you’re doing in your library or in library school–FLIP meetings are all about sharing. Feel free to leave a comment on this blog if you have ideas for us.
The Anchorage Public Library is looking for 3 VISTA volunteers this summer, one for each of these locations: the Z. J. Loussac Library, the Chugiak-Eagle River Branch Library, and the Muldoon Branch Library. If you or someone you know is looking for an amazing summer experience in Anchorage, check out this opportunity.
Vistas will:
Train and coordinate youth volunteers
Develop teen-friendly enrichment activities
Assist with summer reading events
Promote and sign up children for the summer reading celebration
Benefits:
On the job training
Living allowance of approximately $1222/month
Education award or summer stipend upon completion of program
Runs May 27th through August 2nd. Applications due by May 11th
I thought this might be of interest to FLIP members. Note that the Girdwood position does not require an MLS. Please contact Elizabeth Nicolai at the contact information below if you have any questions.
Anchorage Public Library has some fantastic job openings that you might want to apply for.
We are recruiting a Youth Services Programming Librarian (Professional Librarian II). This position works at the Loussac Library on programs for Loussac and much of the system, including coordinating the summer reading program. http://tinyurl.com/ky9v43u
The Mountain View and Muldoon Branch Library manager positions are still open. http://tinyurl.com/lqk8g4t
For the Girdwood Branch Library, we are recruiting a branch supervisor (no MLS required). http://tinyurl.com/lp6daqt
Please contact me if you have any questions about these positions or anything about the Anchorage Public Library. And please do share these with your professional networks if you know someone who might be interested!
Thank you, Elizabeth
Elizabeth Moreau Nicolai Youth Services Coordinator Anchorage Public Library 3600 Denali St Anchorage, AK 99503 907-343-2840
As a member of the ProQuest® Discover More Corps, you may be interested to learn about the 2014 Roger K. Summit Scholarship, presented annually in honor of Dialog’s founder, a pioneer in information systems design. Applications are being accepted now through April 30, 2014.
This $5,000 (USD) award is presented to a student currently enrolled in an accredited library or information science program anywhere in the world. It is one of the many ways ProQuest shows its support for librarianship.
To learn more about the scholarship or to download an application, click here.
If you are an LIS instructor, please share this information with your students. If you are a student, we encourage you to apply for the scholarship. After all, someone is going to receive $5,000. Why not you?
