ASIS&T 2011 Annual Conference with Brittany Deputy

Along with scholarships to attend the ALA Annual Conference and the FLA Annual Conference, SOLIS also gives out a conference scholarship to attend ASIS&T. ASIS&T, or the American Society For Information and Technology,is a leading organization for information science professionals in the US, helping bring the community together to share and grow. Brittany Deputy,the current student chapter President of ASIS&T at USF, received a SOLIS scholarship to attend their recent conference in New Orleans. She had the following to say about her experience:

In October of 2011, I was fortunate enough to be awarded the ASIST Conference Scholarship from the USF: School of Information. With those funds, I was able to travel to New Orleans, LA for the 2011 ASIST Annual Conference to learn and network with my peers not only as a student studying Library and Information Science but also as the ASIST USF Chapter President. At the conference I was introduced to information professionals of all kinds and was able to hear firsthand about cutting edge research in medical informatics, curricula bibliometrics and so many other inspiring feats. It was truly an experience in LIS professional development and study that I will not soon forget. Due to my participation in this conference, I have gained new skills and abilities not found in traditional higher education and I believe this new found knowledge will only increase my capability and marketability in my impending job search after graduation. It is experiences like mine at the 2011 ASIST Annual Conference that make students like myself more driven and focused toward careers in LIS and such experiences would be nearly impossible to have without the help of the ASIST Conference Scholarship Fund provided by donations from LIS professionals and USF alumni.

ALA Annual Conference with Krystal Bullers

Krystal Bullers, a current student at USF was the recipient of the ALA Annual Conference scholarship. She attended the 2011 conference earlier this summer in New Orleans. She had an amazing time and had the following to say about the conference:

“Once a year the American Library Association holds “THE ANNUAL CONFERENCE” – a huge gathering of librarians from all types of libraries and at all stages of their career. I was lucky enough to win a scholarship to attend this year, something I could probably not otherwise have afforded. This year the conference was held in New Orleans making it a double treat since I have not visited the city prior to this.

This conference is huge. Gargantuan. Enormous. Conference attendees roamed the city clutching a program the size of a phone book (okay, a phone book for a smallish city, but still…). I had used the online interactive tool to identify the sessions I wanted to attend but as I thumbed through the satisfyingly substantial guide, I discovered programs and sessions I had overlooked. Deciding on which event from the number of options was very difficult; I ended up choosing sessions based on a combination of interests and sheer logistics. After the first day in which I attended sessions from 8:30 am to 6:00 pm without even a chance to eat, I also decided to be more discriminating in my choices.”

If you would like to read more, you can go to Krystal’s blog.

To see some of Krystal’s adventures at ALA, you can view the presentation she gave at a SOLIS Brown Bag!

SLA Conference, Philadelphia, PA

Last May Margo Moore attended the Special Libraries Association Annual Conference in Philadelphia as the recipient of the School of Information/SOLIS Conference Scholarship.

Margo is a current student and the SLA student chapter vice-president. She was the recipient of one of the SOLIS conference scholarships; these conference scholarships are given to students in the program who are active participants in the student organization. The scholarship helped her go to the recent SLA Annual Conference which was held in Philadelphia by reimbursing her travel, hotel, and conference registration questions. She took the following video of the conference. Enjoy!

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

By Catherine Jones

After stumbling through my first year as a part-time USF LIS graduate student, I knew I needed more library experience than reorganizing shelves at my kids’ school media center.  I had great grades and four classes under my belt, but I desperately needed some real life experience to bring more depth to my studies and research as a graduate student.

Champaign Public Library

How could I analyze ILS systems if I had never used one?  How could I appreciate the urgency and oddity of reference questions if I had not experienced life at a hectic public library Information Desk?   I needed experience as a librarian and not as a typical volunteer.  So when is fieldwork not really fieldwork?  When your graduate school tells you it is too soon for fieldwork, but your advisor enthusiastically states, “Sure, let’s get creative!” and the public library says, “When can you start?”

Marketing Libraries

John County Library partners with the classics. This work by John County Library Systems is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

By Reema Mohini

Libraries today offer classes, e-books, audiobooks, DVDs, and countless other services and products. The problem is that there are still people who don’t know about all of this. That’s a problem. What the library community needs to do is better market itself, and all wonderful things it offers, so that libraries become even more indispensable to communities.

For those who do not have a degree in marketing, figuring out how to market a library can seem tough. It isn’t. Just keep the following in mind: do your research, focus your marketing, and don’t give up.

1. Do your research
How you market your library depends on what community of users

Making Diversity a Reality: USF SI and the Spectrum Scholarships

By Alicia Long and Sylvia Martinez

The American Library Association (ALA) established the Spectrum Scholarship Program as part of an effort to increase diversity in the library professions.  Spectrum does this by recruiting and providing educational funding for students from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds so that they may become librarians.  The mission of the Spectrum Program focuses on “Improving service at the local level through the development of a representative workforce that reflects

After-Dark Lecture: Claudia Dold

Claudia Dold

Last Wednesday, we started our After-Dark Series for the Spring semester at the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute. Assistant Librarian, Claudia Dold, spoke to the students about the mission of the library and gave them a little background of the director of the library, Ardis Hanson.

She also discussed the importance of networking and joining professional associations. Ms. Dold did say that just joining a professional association was not enough; you should also be active in the organization. For example, Claudia