Professional Development Grants for 2009 announced

Recipients of the 2009 LACUNY Professional Development Grants have been announced. This year, two $500 awards were made to support conference travel for 2 LACUNY members to attend a library-related meeting or conference.

Karen Okamoto, Reference/Instruction Librarian at John Jay College, has been awarded the grant to attend and present at the Workshop for Instruction on Library use, to be held in Montreal in May.

Jay Bernstein, Reader Services Librarian at Kingsborough Community College, has been awarded the grant to attend and present at the North American Symposium for Knowledge Organization, to be held in Syracuse in June.

Since 2005, the LACUNY Professional Development Committee has admininstered this grant to fund travel to library-related meetings or conferences.  Summaries of past grantees’ conference experiences can be read here.

Call for applications for the 2009 LACUNY Professional Development Grant

TWO grants of $500 each will be awarded to full LACUNY members who are library faculty for the purpose of attending library-related conferences or meetings that take place after mid-March 2009. Proposals will be blind-reviewed by members of the Professional Development Committee. Awards will not be given to more than one person from each institution. This is NOT a research travel grant, which is covered by the PSC-CUNY Research Awards. Visit the LACUNY website for complete grant information and an application.

The grant applications will be evaluated on the following criteria:

How the member’s attendance furthers the association’s mission, or contributes to areas of special focus within CUNY libraries, or explores new trends in the field
AND how well these ideas are communicated to the reviewers.

Applicants must be LACUNY members as of March 18, 2009 (Paypal or checks received, not postmarked).

• The Grant funds will be disbursed by the LACUNY Treasurer upon submission of receipts in the amount of the grant.
• Awardees will submit a summary report to the Professional Development Committee, which will appear on the Committee’s website and will be published in LACUNY’s News from CUNY Libraries.
• Activities and/or publications supported will credit “LACUNY Grant for Professional Development.”
• Past Grant Awardees are not eligible.

Proposal Due Date: March 18, 2009
Awards Announced: March 25, 2009

2008 LACUNY Travel Grant Recipients

On behalf of the LACUNY Professional Development Committee, I am pleased to announce the recipients of the 2008 LACUNY Travel Grants. This award of $500 is made to a LACUNY member to support travel to a library-related conference or meeting. This year two awards have been made:

David Brodherson, Baruch College, Art Libraries Society of North America Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, May 2008

Beth Evans, Brooklyn College, Off-campus Library Services Conference, Salt Lake City, UT, April 2008

Congratulations, David and Beth!

CUNY Libraries Win Achievement Award from NYLINK

The 2007 NYLINK Achievement Award in recognition of contributions to NYLINK or to library cooperation or collaboration was awarded to The City University of New York. The award is in recognition of CUNY’s contributions in the area of resource sharing, particularly for the CUNY Libraries Intra Campus Service (CLICS).

NYLINK Awards Committee Chair Gary Thompson noted:

The City University of New York students have had vast and diverse library resources at their disposal. However, due to historical circumstances, CUNY has not always functioned as a fully integrated system from the perspective of the student and faculty member. Through recent administrative and technological developments, it is now possible for a student at any CUNY campus to request materials for delivery to any other campus.

For their perseverance and investment in library collaboration and their contribution to creating more points of light toward the day when New York State truly has a statewide borrowing and delivery system, let us congratulate The City University of New York upon receiving this award.

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NYLINK, based in Albany, New York, is a nonprofit membership organization consisting of all types of libraries and information organizations throughout New York State and surrounding areas. http://nylink.org/about.htm

The City University of New York is the nation’s largest urban public university with 23 institutions. The University serves more than 226,000 degree-credit students and 230,000 adult, continuing and professional education students. http://www.cuny.edu

Congratulations to Beth Evans!

Brooklyn College’s own Beth Evans has rightly been selected as one of Library Journal’s “2007 Movers and Shakers” for her excellent work in developing a MySpace profile for her library. Bravo!

Hostos -winner of the ACRL Excellence in Academic Libraries Award

I know that this has been on CULIBS, but just in case you didn’t click on those email links, here is an excerpt from the ACRL announcement.
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The Hostos Community College Library, winner of the community college category, was recognized for putting the “community” in community college.

“The Hostos Library staff demonstrate exemplary partnership and leadership with faculty in developing new curricular design and revitalization through the development of new courses designed to teach information literacy, critical thinking, computer literacy, and also by creating bilingual online learning environments,” said Frances Maloy, chair of the 2007 Excellence in Academic Libraries Selection Committee and Division Leader of Access Services at Emory University.

“The library staff has absorbed the meaning of the life of the person for whom the institution is named through their bilingual, multilevel, and curriculum integrated information literacy program,” Maloy added. “Their efforts to produce the bilingual student literary and art magazine, Escriba!/Write! and to create an inviting and bilingual student-focused environment in the library are also noteworthy.”

In addition, Hostos Library is serving the broader research community by preserving unique collections about Eugenio Maria de Hostos and by creating and preserving records about the founding of Hostos Community College.

“I cannot think of a better gift for our students and our community than to receive this national recognition of excellence for their library,” said Lucinda Zoe, professor and chief librarian of the Hostos Community College/CUNY. “It is a powerful message to send to our community here in the South Bronx – you have the best and you deserve it. Winning this award is truly a testament to the commitment of the library faculty and staff, as well as our college administration, to the library and our students. It is a pleasure to serve such an appreciative and deserving student body, and I am most honored and blessed to work with an extremely gifted and generous faculty and staff. They consistently go above and beyond for our students and it shows. And now, everyone knows!”