American Library Association Scholarship Program

The American Library Association (ALA) is committed to promoting and advancing the librarian profession. To demonstrate this commitment, the ALA and its units provide more than $300,000 annually for study in a master's degree in library and information studies from an ALA accredited program, or for a master's degree in school library media program that meets the ALA curriculum guidelines for a National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) accredited unit.
The scholarship process is open annually from October - March. Applications and reference forms (which must be submitted on-line) are available during that time period. Instructions and general information remain available year round.

http://ala.org/ala/educationcareers/scholarships/

Libraryworks

New resource for library workers: Libraryworks.com

Includes library job announcements and online access to selected library trade publications.

From their website:
"WELCOME TO LIBRARYWORKS!
Our mission is to help you to make informed, cost-efficient decisions about products and services for your library.
LibraryWorks, a service provided free of charge to the library community, is designed and delivered to enable administrators, librarians and media specialists to identify best practices, discover special offers and discounts on products and services, learn of new technologies and services, and other resources to help them and their libraries to thrive."

Library Routes Project Wiki

The Library Routes project (http://libraryroutesproject.wikkii.com) was created by three Information Professionals: jennie law, thewikiman and Woodsiegirl. It launched at the start of October, 2009, and is aimed at all types of Information Professionals and library workers. This wiki exists to document and link to all those who have blogged or otherwise written about their library roots (how they got into the profession) and their library routes (the jobs they've had and how their career has been shaped). NOTE: many of the librarians are in the UK.

The idea is to document either or both of your library roots
- how you got into the profession in the first place and what made you decide to do so
- and your library routes - the career path which has taken you to wherever you are today.

As well as being interesting of itself, it will also provide much needed information and context for those just entering the profession or wishing to do so.
(From Library and Information Science News http://www.lisnews.org/)

The Next Step - First Days II

I started this post awhile back but it got put on hold as my homework seemed to pile up over the course of the semester. Even though I had an inkling of how much work I'd have with grad school, the reality of just how much sank in later.

Networking was the concept that was thrown out a lot during the weekend the UNT/CSUN program started. While getting classroom knowledge is beneficial, networking is what will take you where you want to go. Who you know really can make a difference sometimes.

So how does one go about networking? The first place to start is your classmates. Even when you leave the Library Technology Program, stay in contact with your former classmates. Hopefully, during the program, you've made some great friendships which you make the effort to continue. Sometimes the way I've found out about jobs is through word of mouth. In addition, stay in touch with your former teachers who are in an area of librarianship that you are interested in. Staying in contact with former teachers can be good when you need letters of recommendations or a reference for a job application.


But you don't want to stop there. Join ALA (American Library Association) and CLA (California Library Association). There are student memberships that don't cost a lot so take advantage of those. If you wonder what your memberships can and will do for you, I'll be covering this topic soon.

School Days - Book Repairs

Working in an elementary school library is a constant challenging and growing experience indeed! Most recently, I finally tried my hand at repairing the forever growing pile of books that desperately needed to be repaired. A quick fix of some tape isn't so bad. But trying to rescue a book that is barely hanging from its spine is another story. You may wonder why I didn't just toss the book then in the discards pile. Well, if it's a very sought after and/or expensive book that students keep clamoring after, then you may find it in your heart to take the extra time to try to put the book back together. That was the case for this one origami book.

I have to say I was truly doubtful that glue and tape would really do the job but I tried to remember what Jitka Hora had taught us in her short session about book repairs in Library 104. I have to say I was fearful of tackling these projects on my own without a guide showing me what to do.

With limited supplies of white glue, tape, and a paintbrush, I accessed each book and decided which was the best route to take. Some books just needed some tape. Others needed massive amounts of glue and tape to even warrant a hope of holding together. Then I secured the books as tightly as I could with multiple rubber bands. I used the heaviest books I could find in my collection (2 Art History books that no one ever looks at) and sat them on top of a pile of paperbacks and other small books. For the larger books, I just piled them on top of one another and hoped for the best. I let all the books sit for almost a week.

Today, I decided the books had enough time to let the glue do its job. I was really curious if glue could indeed put that origami book back into circulation. I have to say I'm truly amazed to see this book held together so well. Mission accomplished! My students will surely be psyched to see this book has made its return. Question is: how long will this book withstand its recent repairs? I'm hoping for awhile at least. But if it does come to that again, I am now confident I can do my best to put that book back together just like they put Humpty Dumpty back together when he fell down.

This We Know - Viewing Statistics from Data.gov

There is a tremendous amount of information provided to American citizens. For all of the questions being asked about governmental data the answers are not always easy to find.


This We Know is not a government site but is does display governmental data. The website collects information from www.data.gov and presents it in a format that is accessible.

For example, by typing in the zip code of 91106 I quickly found out that:

• How much pollutants were release in the air and by which companies within the zip code.
• How many people are unemployed in Pasadena, CA.
• How many factories are in the area.

The information is drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau, Data.gov and other statistic data bases. It seems to be in the early stages so what you see is what you get. I imagine as time goes on users would be able to ask questions via the website to draw answers form Data.gov.

At least, I hope so.

But if you like your data raw, massive and plum overwhelming there is nothing like going to the source, in this case the Data.gov Tools page:

On the Tools page is a gateway catalog of the hundreds of governmental websites providing statistical information, information resources and government resources.

You can search by category or by governmental agency. There is a lot of data here. Use what you can, it is for the taking.

CLA Conference 2009 Exhibit Hall - BookScanner

I got a chance to visit the exhibit floor of the California Library Association Conference. With the economy and the rapid changes in the industry I was surprised to see as many vendors as I did.

However, I didn't see e-book device vendors. I did see examples of e-book readers so I was able to view some of the well know devices like the Kindle and the one from Sony.

This is a short video that I recorded on a scanner system that could make a lot of sense to an academic library. This is just for demonstration purposes only, no endorsement is intended or implied.



Maybe this is the sign of the times. I was shocked to learn that the bad apple kind of students have been tearing pages out of reference books and flat out stealing materials.

Maybe a device like this could be set up so that those less than ethical students would not have access to the actual reference book but could acquire the readings that they need for class via a .pdf document.

Now knowing bad apples they way I do I wouldn't necessarily expect that they would pay for their readings. These are the kind of folks that would talk a friend into paying for them with the promise of paying them back later. (Cough!)

Another idea was that this could replace the photocopy machine. Since many students have access to e-mail, USB devices and other recordable media the student or staff member could scan the material and load it into the USB device or save as a .pdf

This could be the same amount of money used to charge for a copy but you wouldn't have the paper and the repair costs associated with the copy machines. Now don't think that the copy machine folks haven't thought about this because there are copy machines that can scan to .pdf and have the document e-mailed to the user.

Well, it is a though. But if you were looking to buy the library a holiday gift I'm thinking this would not be necessarily turned down.