A New England library

NELA News                         June 2009

NELA News is a monthly e-newsletter of the New England Library Association

2009 Scholarships

The Educational Assistance Committee is pleased to announce this year’s Graduate study scholarship winners:

Full-time students receiving $2000 scholarships:

  • Alexis Brown, a student at Simmons College, Boston, and Massachusetts resident, plans to be a school librarian where she can reach young readers and "create life-long learners."
  • Tara Vito, a Rhode Island resident, attends the University of RI, and has overcome difficult circumstances and found support in libraries along the way. She plans to become a school librarian to help children the same way she was helped in her own life.

Part-time students receiving $1000 scholarships:

  • Cindy Weber, a Vermont resident, and distance education student of the University of Illinois, has 10 years library experience and hopes to become a library director and active library advocate.
  • Amanda Lovett, another Rhode Island resident, attends St. John’s University in New York, and hopes to work as a Library Media Specialist at the elementary or middle school level. She would like to be part of a Newbery or Caldecott committee some day.

We congratulate the winners and wish them the best as they complete their degrees.

NETSL Spring Conference draws 257 attendees

The annual NETSL spring conference, held on April 17, boasted a full and exciting program that included two keynote presentations, four breakout sessions, and a panel discussion. If you missed this great event, you can access speaker presentation files and handouts from the NETSL conference page at http://www.nelib.org/netsl/conference.

NELA CMS Day is June 12

"Building a better website with Content Management Systems: Drupal, Joomla, Plone, & WordPress" features a keynote address by Jessamyn West and real-life user experience presentations on four CMS systems that can be used to advantage for your library’s web pages.

Registration for the ITS Spring Event continues through June 8 at http://nelib.org/its/conference.

REMINDER: Counterparts mini conference is July 16-17

Counterparts 2009 is a two-day educational event for NELA members, state library association members, consortia members and any other interested persons.

Nancy Kranich, Past President of ALA, will be the Keynote speaker discussing "The Role of Libraries in Promoting Civic Engagement." More details and registration form at http://nelib.org/counterparts.

Board Votes To Honor Krug

At the May 15 meeting of NELA’s board of directors, a motion was passed unanymously to accept a resolution honoring Judith Krug in her lifelong effort to protect and defend the First Amendment right to freedom of expression; to extend sympathy to the family of Judith Krug in their recent loss; and to bestow her honorary membership in the New England Library Association in gratitude to her dedication and commitment to libraries, librarianship, and the First Amendment rights of all people.

States News

Connecticut – Preparations continue for the annual NELA conference. This year "It’s Happening in Hartford" from Oct. 18-20 at the Connecticut Convention Center in downtown Hartford, just a short walk from Connecticut’s new Science Museum, the historic Old State House, and America’s oldest continuing public art museum, the Wadsworth Athenaeum. Conference information and registration details can be accessed at http://nelib.org/conference.

Massachusetts – The MLA Conference held on May 5-8 in Springfield, MA had over 650 attendees and was very successful.

Massachusetts is still accepting orders for a MA library license plate with proceeds to benefit public, academic, special and school libraries across the state that belong to a Regional Library System. Details can be found at http://www.cmrls.org/plates_public.htm.

Social networking: MLA has created a Facebook page called Fans of MLA.

Maine – No news to report.

New Hampshire – At the CHILIS Spring Conference, CHILIS members voted to join the Collaborative Summer Library Program, a national summer reading program that includes 48 states. CHILIS will begin its membership beginning with the 2010 summer reading program. Barbara Ballou from the Whipple Free Library in New Boston was named NH Children’s Librarian of the Year.

Rhode Island – Alicia Waters has been named librarian of the Office of Library and Information Services (OLIS) library in Rhode Island. Waters is a 20+ year veteran of OLIS and received her MLIS from the University of Rhode Island GSLIS in 2008.

Vermont – The VLA Board has officially confirmed that the association will not be co-sponsoring the VLC next year but will instead pursue either a half-day or full-day educational workshop that can be offered regionally around the state. A conversation has been initiated that may result in the pursuit of joint opportunities with both NHLA and NELA (specifically, the annual conference planned for Burlington in 2011).

NELA News is a monthly e-newsletter of the New England Library Association. It is published the first week of the month. Deadline for news items and articles is the last day of the previous month.
To submit news or articles contact: publications@nelib.org;
NELA, 31 Connor Lane, Wilton, NH 03086; 603-654-3533, 603-654-3526 fax
Publications Committee: Jan Drake, Karen Patterson