ALAO Newsletter

The ALAO Conference Planning Committee invites you to submit proposals for presentations, 25-minute spotlight sessions, or poster sessions that bring new ideas or approaches useful for academic libraries. This year’s conference theme, “Constant Change, Constant Opportunity,” looks at the challenges facing academic libraries as budgetary, institutional, occupational, and technological changes cause us to reflect and adapt how we provide services to our users and communities.

Presentations may take the form of contributed papers, demonstrations, workshops, research, or panel discussions. Spotlight sessions can be “lightning round” style programs, multimedia slides, or other presentation techniques that cover a subject or issue that can be dealt with in a 25-minute time frame. Poster sessions should embrace the conference theme and present original ideas, innovative solutions to problems, library-related projects, or creative approaches to dealing with change in today’s academic libraries.

For more details, proposal forms, and presentation grant forms, please check the conference website:
http://www.alaoweb.org/events

Presentation and Poster Session Deadline: April 8th, 2011

ALAO seeks to encourage support staff development and participation in ALAO activities. ALAO also seeks to provide opportunities for students and new librarians to grow professionally towards a career in academic libraries. In recognition of this, ALAO awards two presenter grants, one for support staff and the other for students, to assist with presenting at the ALAO Annual Conference. Grant monies will be awarded up $150 annually for each grant. Grant monies are intended to assist with the costs incurred in preparing the presentation and modest travel costs associated with the presentation.

All grant applications will be considered by the ALAO Presenter Grant Committee. Only presenters of presentations or poster sessions chosen for inclusion in the conference by the 2011 Conference Planning Committee will be eligible for final consideration for the grant.

For more information on eligibility requirements check out the ALAO site:
Support Staff Grant:
http://alaoweb.org/events?eventId=289544&EventViewMode=EventDetails

Student Grant:
http://alaoweb.org/events?eventId=289545&EventViewMode=EventDetails

Ann Watson, Ohio University Lancaster

ALA National Library Legislative Day is Co-sponsored by the District of Columbia Library Association and the American Library Association, and will be held May 9 & 10, 2011. Tell Senators and Representatives about the great programs and activities taking place @ your library!

Apply for ALAO’s Legislative Travel Grant (Award amount $600.00 for travel, lodging, food) for participation in this event.

As a member of the official Ohio delegation, the winner of this grant, along with the ALAO Government Relations Liaison, will meet with the members of the Ohio delegation and attend a briefing by the ALA Washington Office staff, as well as join other Ohio librarians in appointments with legislators and staff members.

To apply, send a letter or email expressing interest to:
Ann M. Watson, Ohio University Lancaster, Hannah V. McCauley Library,
1570 Granville Pike, Lancaster, OH 43130. (watsona2@ohio.edu)

Include in your letter a brief description of any advocacy experience you’ve had and/or political issue involvement through ALAO or other civic organizations. Include also the name and phone number of a reference who is familiar with your advocacy efforts and interest. Even if you have no experience, but have an interest in learning more about legislative advocacy, you are encouraged to apply.

The deadline is March 31, 2011. The winner will be named in plenty of time to make travel plans.
The ALAO is looking forward to hearing from you!

Cleveland State University
Barbara Strauss, Assistant Director of Technical Services, Michael Schwartz Library Cleveland State University received an ALAO Continuing Education grant to participate in the ALA online course “Deciding with Data.”

Dennison
After 10 years of service to Denison University’s William Howard Doane Library, Director Dr. Lynn Scott Cochrane retired on January 28. Mary Prophet, Deputy Director, has been appointed Interim Director.

Miami University
Congratulations to former ALAO Communications Editor, Lindsay Miller, on the birth of her daughter Lila.

Ohio State University
The Ohio State University at Lima welcomes Rena Hunter as assistant professor in the University Libraries. Hunter will serve as the reference librarian. Hunter holds three master’s degrees: in library science from the University of Denver, in education from Georgia State, and in divinity from Ashland Theological Seminary, where she is also currently completing doctoral work.

Carol Pitts Diedrichs is pleased to announce the appointment of five senior leaders to The Ohio State University Libraries’ administrative team. These leaders will implement the Libraries’ strategic plan and also help to implement a new organizational model.
The appointees are:

• Karla Strieb, Associate Director for Collections, Technical Services and Scholarly Communications.
• Craig Gibson, Associate Director for Research and Education.
• Lisa Carter, Associate Director for Special Collections and Area Studies
• Beth Warner, Associate Director for Information Technology
• Lisa Patton-Glinski, Assistant Director for Planning and Administration

Southern State Community College
On March 9th, the Learning Resources Center hosted a women’s tea honoring June Reighley, an 82 year old student who will graduate this spring.

Southern State will celebrate National Library Week with activities running from 8 am to 8 pm. The Fayette campus won a scholarship from American Libraries and will be joining in the celebrations with activities focusing on the unemployment in their area and educating the people on what help is available.

Wright State University
Maureen Barry, Librarian for First-Year and Distance Learning Services, and Mary Lou Baker Jones, Science and Math Librarian will welcome their 17th and 18th students to the Wright State University Libraries practicum program this summer. All of these but one have been Kent State University SLIS students.

New to the WSU Libraries in Fall Quarter 2010 are Mika Sasaki, Library Technical Assistant 2 at the Lake Campus Learning Center; Debra Henning, Library Technical Assistant at Dunbar Library; Jason Lipiec, Web Developer; and Bill McIntire, Archivist.

Maureen Barry, Librarian for First-Year and Distance Learning Services, launched a blog Jan. 1 called Service Learning Librarian, http://www.libraries.wright.edu/servicelearning.

Chris Wydman, WSU Records Manager, was elected Great Lakes Region Coordinator for ARMA International.

Mary Healea, Senior Library Associate, Chris Wydman, Records Manager, and Bryan Nethers, Office Assistant, were members of the Staff Development Day group awarded the 2010 President’s Award For Excellence in the Spirit of Innovation category.

Office Assistant Bryan Nethers received his Associate of Arts degree in Liberal Arts & Sciences from Sinclair Community College in December 2010.

WSU basketball player Armond Battle named Reference Specialist Beth Anderson for recognition at the WSU Athletics Department’s Student-Athlete Recognition Day on Feb. 5. Athletes with a 3.0 cumulative GPA through Fall Qtr. 2010 were asked to name a faculty/staff member important to his or her success. Beth co-teaches reference & instruction courses with Ben Penry, STAC Reference Specialist.

Other news
Brian Hickam presented a panel paper, “The World Metal Alliance: How Efforts to Improve Scholarly Communication Are Assisting Inquiries into Heavy Metal Histories,” at the International Association for the Study of Popular Music annual conference March 9-13, 2011.

ALAO Research and Publications Committee, 2011 Research Grant Program Award Winners
Joshua Finnell, humanities librarian at Denison University, and his colleague, Bruce Rogers, visiting assistant professor of mathematics at Duke University, will receive a grant award of $280 in support of their proposed research project entitled Understanding the Network of Influence in Scholarly Communication and Collaboration in Open-Access Humanities.

Fang Fang, instructional technologist at Kenyon College will receive a grant award of $220 in support of her proposed research project entitled Building Knowledge Sharing Environment for Collaborative Learning.