We are happy to announce this year’s SLA New England Chapter Stipend Recipients. All will be attending this year’s Annual Conference.

Student Travel Stipend Winner: Sophy Bishop

Sophy Bishop just finished her third semester at Simmons GSLIS where she is the current president of SLA @ Simmons and is interested in Special Libraries, User Experience and Content Strategy. She works part time at Harvard Law School in the Communications Department and interns at Harvard Business School with the Knowledge Management team. Originally from Connecticut, Sophy likes to cook, bike, travel and read in her spare time. She is very excited to attend her first professional conference.

Diversity Leadership Development Scholarship Winner: Brendan Thompson

Brendan is currently an Information Specialist at Gnarus Advisors, LLC, and hopes to use his platform as the Diversity Stipend recipient to advance partnerships and collaboration with New England information schools, and increase diversity within campus student groups.

Unemployed/Part-Time Employed Annual Conference Stipend Winner: Brandy King

Brandy King is an independent Information Professional with her own new, consulting company Knowledge Linking. She has been an SLA member for 8 years. Brandy helps with chapter ongoing communication and programming efforts, providing practical advice for the chapter’s social media presence.  She also chairs the SLA Social Science Division.

Congratulations and see you in Chicago!

It’s time to cast your vote to select the recipient of our NEW SLA Annual Conference Stipend. Voting will be open from Friday May 4 until 5pm on Friday May 11, 2012.

Read the application: Application1

And then, vote here!

SLA New England is pleased to announce a $1500 stipend available to a current MLS student in the New England area.

SLA New England Student Travel Stipend Award Criteria

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Be currently enrolled as a degree candidate at an ALA-accredited academic program in Library and Information Science in New England.
• Be a first time attendee of an SLA conference.
• Be a current member of SLA and of the SLA’s New England Chapter.

APPLICATION PROCESS:
Submit a document containing the following information/elements:

• Full name.
• Academic affiliation: Institution and Program.
• Date of start of program; number of semesters and courses completed as of December 2011; and anticipated date of graduation.
• Contact information, including mailing address, telephone, and email.
• Other SLA division awards, if any, for which you are applying.
• An essay of no more than 750 words (see details below). The essay should be double-spaced.

Submissions will be judged on the basis of originality and clarity as well as on inclusion of all required information. Neatness, spelling, grammar, and completion of all required information will count in judging.

ESSAY DESCRIPTION:
Write an essay of up to 750 words on one of the following two topics:

1. The conference theme this year is “Practicing Agility in an Open World Economy.”  What does this mean to you in the context of being an information professional?
2. Why would attending this conference be beneficial to you in your transition from student to information professional?

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION SUBMISSION:
Sunday, April 15th, 2012

APPLICATION PROCESS:
Applications should be emailed as a single file attachment in Microsoft Word to Wendy Austin, SLA New England Student Relations Committee Co-Chair, at the following email address: waustin@draper.com.
Please contact Wendy with questions about the application process.

POST AWARD REQUIREMENTS:
1. The Awardee will write a brief article (approximately 1,000 words) on the conference experience for posting on the SLA New England Website (http://newengland.sla.org/).
2. The Awardee must serve a one-year term as the Student Relations Committee Co-Chair of the SLA New England Chapter or, if graduated during the 2012 spring semester, as a member of the Student Relations Committee (the latter may be accomplished virtually, if the recipient is no longer a New England resident following graduation).
3. The Awardee must be a member of SLA and of the SLA’s New England Chapter throughout the one-year board term described above

NOTIFICATION AND AWARD DISTRIBUTION:

• Applicants will receive notification of award status in late April 2012.
• The winners will make their own conference and registration arrangements and will receive prompt reimbursement for travel expenses after the conference by submitting travel receipts to the SLA New England treasurer. The award may be applied to the SLA student conference registration fee, transportation, and lodging costs. Meals and incidental expenses are not covered.

SLA New England Chapter is pleased to announce a $1000 stipend for a unemployed or  part-time employed member to attend this year’s annual conference.  Applications are now available to download.

Qualifications

• An active SLA New England member
• Who completed a LIS program before May 31, 2011
• Who is currently unemployed or working equal to or less than 20 hours a week
• Who has not previously received a scholarship or stipend from SLA New England

Applicants must write a 500 word essay on one of the following questions:

a.)    Why is attending SLA Annual Conference important to you?

b.)    Describe an SLA benefit you value and how it could be enhanced or improved.

Application Process

Applications must be sent as a single file attachment in Word or Acrobat PDF format by email to Nancy Burt, SLA New England Chapter Past President: nancy.b.burt AT gmail.com. Please contact Nancy for general guidance about application.

Submissions will be judged by your peers! We will post all essays with names and personal identifying details removed to http://newengland.sla.org. Members and visitors to the website will be able to vote for the winning essay. The person with the most votes will be awarded the stipend.  

Post Award Requirement: Recipient will write a post summarizing his/her activities at the conference.

Deadline for Application Submission: April 26^th

Notification: May 5^th

We are now accepting applications for the SLA New England Diversity Leadership Development Scholarship that can be used for one of the following:

• SLA Annual Conference attendance
• Tuition reimbursement at a library science program
• Tuition reimbursement for a professional development program directly related to the information professional field

Scholarship Eligibility Rules:

• Any SLA New England Chapter member in good standing
• Of Black (African American), Hispanic, Asian or Pacific Islander, American Indian, Aleutian (Alaskan) native or native Hawaiian heritage
• And not awarded the Minority Scholarship previously

Application Process

To apply, please download the application and submit to Khalilah Gambrell (kgambrell AT ebscohost.com) by April 3^rd.  Recipient will be notified by late April.

If you have any questions, please contact Khalilah Gambrell.

SLA New England Diversity Committee is looking for two members to help select this year’s SLA New England Diversity stipend recipient.

SLA New England Diversity stipend is given to any current SLA New England member of African American, Hispanic, Asian or Pacific Islander, American Indian, Aleutian (Alaskan) native or native Hawaiian heritage.

The stipend can be used for

• SLA Annual Meeting attendance
• Tuition reimbursement at a graduate school of library science program
• Tuition reimbursement for a professional development program directly related to the library and information professional field

If you are interested in selecting the next recipient, please email SLA New England Chapter President, Khalilah Gambrell (kgambrell AT ebscohost.com) by February 28^th.

Last year’s recipient was Molly McInerney (http://newengland.sla.org/archives/637).

This year we are pleased to announce that our winner for  SLA Student Travel Stipend is Tomoko Kurahashi. Tomoko’s project proposal is “Sharing Self-Directed Learning Opportunities”, as summarized here:

In our present world of evolving technology, we often get too busy and involved in our commitments, and sometimes the lack of time to acquire new technological knowledge erodes our confidence in library science. Increasingly, more librarians are concerned with obtaining more specialized knowledge and skills. This project is to comprehensively provide a one-stop collection of self-learning websites, materials, and modules relating to technology and library information through the SLA Boston Chapter wiki page. The objective is to open up opportunities for further education at one’s own pace, enhance our library services to patrons and our professional librarianship, and potentially recruit new SLA members.

Tomoko is graduating from the Simmons GSLIS program in May 2011 and her professional interests generally include engineering, science, and technology subject specialties, web development, information technology, data curation, and e-Science. Having graduated in mechanical engineering and worked in an engineering library in Japan, her continued interests in library science for engineering brought her to the United States. To keep herself up to date on current library affairs, she does volunteering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.