What's so great about Patrick Jones?

This may help you understand.

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Election results

Since we only had one nominee for each position, this year's elections have been very easy. Here are the results:

Chair: Sara Zettervall
Co-Chair: Helena Kilbride

These positions will last through the end of the winter term in 2012, with our next elections also taking place in winter 2012 for the following academic year.

Now that elections are complete and the constitution has been ratified, we can become an official ALA student chapter. I (Sara) will send these off to the ALA and await our goodies from them!

Elections update

• The nomination deadline has been extended until Monday, just in case folks aren't checking email during the break.
• I don't know if I'm breaching some kind of etiquette by telling you all this, but right now I'm the only person in the running (Sara Z for Chair!). My feelings will not be hurt if someone else wants to run against me, but...
• It would be super awesome if at least one person wants to be Co-Chair! Step right up and email your nom to ala-students@stkate.edu.

Election nominations!

I just sent an email with this information to all members. If you didn't get the email, please let me know ASAP because that means you also won't get the link to vote later on.

It's time to hold our first elections. Per our newly ratified constitution, we will have 2 positions, Chair and Co-Chair. The descriptions of those positions from the constitution are listed below. The term of these positions is through the end of the winter 2012 semester; in winter 2012 we will hold the next round of elections for the following year.

To nominate yourself for a position, please email ala-students@stkate.edu with your name, whether you are running for Chair or Co-Chair, and 2-3 sentences on what you hope to accomplish in the position. If you'd like to nominate someone else, please send their name and which position, and cc them on the email so they can accept or deny the nomination. Please send the nominations by Friday, March 25, 2011 Monday, March 28, 2011.


Our faculty advisor, Sarah Park, will oversee the nomination and election process. Once all the nominations are received, I will create (and she will verify the fairness of) a survey monkey so we can vote online. Each of you will receive an email with your own individual link to vote anonymously, and the link will only work once.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions. We're almost to the point of being an official group!

Section 3.1
There shall be two elected officers of ALA Student Chapter: Chair and Co-Chair sharing treasurer and secretarial duties between them.  A Secretary may be assigned at the discretion of the Chair depending on the needs of the organization. This structure will constitute the Executive Committee.

Section 3.2
The Chair shall specifically be responsible for presiding at all meetings, for serving as official ALA representative and liaison with ALA headquarters and for representing ALA in the orientation program for new students, for acting as an ex-officio member of all committees, and for overseeing the functions of the other members of the Executive Committee.

Section 3.3
The Co-Chair shall specifically be responsible for assuming the duties of the Chair in case of emergency, for publicizing all meetings, and for coordinating the reports of the ALA representatives to the SGO and advising the SGO of any business affecting ALA Student Chapter.

ARLD Day 2011

ARLD Day 2011: The Everywhere Library

"Last year, Academic and Research Libraries (ARLD) Day was all about getting users into the library building. This year, we’ll look at serving our patrons where they are. We know they work from their computers at home and in their offices, but they’re also increasingly accessing our services and information via mobile devices. What do libraries need to be thinking about? What services are successful? What technologies and metadata are required to make access easy and understandable? Join us on April 29 at ARLD Day 2011: The Everywhere Library to find out."

We have a constitution!

St. Kate's ALA Student Chapter Constitution

Many thanks to everyone who attended the meeting yesterday and helped revise and ratify it.

Activities for our student chapter

These are some ideas we came up with at last week's meeting for activities our student chapter can do over the next year. We will start the planning process at the April 6th meeting, so please plan to be there!

• Speakers: more interest in bringing in presenters who would talk to a small group, likely as part of the Monday night workshops. Possible presenters: Patrick Jones (YA), Sanford Berman???, professional storytellers.
• Field trips! Tour the "caves" at the U of M, visit the MN History Center, learn about bookbinding at the MN Center for Book Arts.
• MN Library Association: annual conference (volunteer opps, carpool), library advocacy day.
• Happy hour! End of this semester, after new student orientation in the fall, book & beer.
• Book drives (although the PLG has that covered for this term)
• Engage with library fundraising
• Speed networking

 If you have additional ideas, or if I missed anything, please add comments.

PLA Online Seminar on Library Advocacy

The Public Library Association (division of ALA) is offering "Turning the Page 2.0," a free 6-week online course supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The description from the website:

In this six-week, facilitated online course, library staff and supporters will learn how to create and tell their library's story, deliver effective presentations, develop a compelling case for support, and build and sustain partnerships along the way.

 Anyone can participate; one of the sessions mostly takes place in August, when we don't have classes. I might actually try to register for it--but even if you don't want to let your overachiever freak flag fly and do the same, this is a great example of the kind of professional development opportunities you have to look forward to after graduation!

Chapter constitution

Reminder: we will be working on (and maybe even ratifying!) the chapter constitution at our meeting tomorrow, 5pm, in CDC 362.

Some good reads:

• St. Kate's ALA Student Chapter Constitution: Google Doc
• Examples of a generic student group constitution and the constitutions of other chapters on the ALA website

Minnesota Book Awards

Register through TwinCities.com to vote for your favorite local authors in the Minnesota Book Awards Readers Choice category.

You may also want to check out the Minnesota Book Awards website. The Friends of the St. Paul Public Library, host of the event, is one of the most active and successful library friends organizations in the nation.

"Restrictions on library e-book lending threaten access to information"

This has caused quite an uproar in the library community: "The recent decision by publisher HarperCollins to restrict the lending of e-books to a limited number of circulations per copy threatens libraries’ ability to provide their users with access to information."

Click here to read the rest of the ALA press release...

ALA email lists

Even if you're not a member of the ALA, you can subscribe for free to their email lists.

I especially encourage your subscription to the new ALA JobLIST newsletter, which is full of good info for us at this point in our careers:
http://ala.informz.net/ala/profile.asp?fid=1494

Here's information on the ALA wiki about subscribing--there are more lists than you would care to see here:
http://wikis.ala.org/readwriteconnect/index.php/ALA_mailing_lists

There's probably a lot more to be said about this--please feel free to use the comments to add.

Welcome to our blog!

Hi everyone! Our online communication format may change in the future, but right now, there's just too much good stuff out there that needs to be shared. So, here's a blog for our ALA student chapter. Stay tuned while I start posting stuff...