Teacher of the Year, New Faculty/Staff, NLM Fellowship, and LIBRIS 3D

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

I just want to share some good news!

First of all, April Tolley is the Teacher of the Year at her elementary
school in Pickens County. She is a recent graduate and we send her
congratulations! If you or other of our graduates from our School
Library Media Program were named Teachers of the Year for 2008, please
let me know!

Next, we found a perfect Student Services Manager to work with Tilda
Reeder and Andy Thomas. Her name is Sarah Keeling and she comes to us
from the USC Aiken campus. Sarah starts June 2 and I know you will all
welcome her!

One of our May graduates, Patrick McLaughlin has been chosen as one of
the 2008-2009 National Library of Medicine Postgraduate Fellows. It is
a great honor for a LIS student to be chosen as an NLM Fellow. Many of
the NLM postgraduate fellows have become leaders in the fields of health
sciences librarianship/health informatics so we wish Patrick well and
thank Dr. Tu for her sponsorship and mentoring.

Speaking of Dr. Tu... As the faculty advisor for LISSA, I am sure she
wants you, if you are in Anaheim for ALA, to join NMRT on Sunday, June
29 from 6:30 - 7:30 p.m. in the Hyatt/Grand B for the presentation of
the 2008 ALA Student Chapter of the Year Award. If you missed my last
update, our LISSA students won the award this year! See the proud
members at
http://www.libsci.sc.edu/lissaaward/lissafirst.htm.

Also, the press release for Dr. Zimmerman's award is at
http://www.ala.org/ala/pressreleases2008/may2008/AASLdistinguished.cfm
and we hope you will join us to celebrate on Monday June 30 at ALA.

Our sister School of Journalism has a new director! Dr. Carol Pardun
will be joining us this August and we are very pleased to have a sailor
on board ;-} She is the incoming president of AEJMC and comes to us
from Middle Tennessee State University. I am looking forward to working
with her and know you will all welcome her warmly.

We had a wonderful meeting with Association of Public Library
Administrators (APLA) members and David Goble, State Librarian in Myrtle
Beach during BIKE WEEK! Despite the deep throated rumble of a million
Harleys, we worked on strategic directions for the goals and objectives
that the three institutions hold in common. There were several places
of intersection with the top two being Funding/Advocacy and Data
Research/Communication. We will continue to work on building this
partnership with a preliminary report coming during SCLA.

And finally, congratulations to the LIBRIS 2008 Planning Committee for
a great conference on Friday May 16. Diane Lohr was Chair and Yvonne
Davis, and Nell Bradley (our fabulous hostess) and many others put on a
wonderful day of learning and interaction. Our Dr. Chuck Curran was on
the program as well as Dr. Curtis Rogers and other friends. LIBRIS 3D
was hosted by the Florence-Darlington Technical College Libraries at
SiMT, Southeastern Institute of Manufacturing and Technology. The
facility was super! This is the premiere technical service provider,
and training facility, for industry in the southeastern portion of the
United States. It's state of the art facilities provide
engineering/CAD/CAM, rapid prototyping, and 3D/virtual reality services
as well as leading edge manufacturing workforce development and business
process training. Be sure to check this link:
http://simt.com/default.asp and let me know if you are not amazed and
excited about these new technologies. Send me one collaborative idea to
work on with SiMT and libraries and I'll send you a free subscription
to these Davis College Updates!

So enjoy this good life and let me know if there is anything we can do
for you!

sam

Graduation, ALA Conference, and Diligent Advisors!

Hurray! It's spring AND it's graduation! As you know from my
previous updates, graduation is my favorite celebration. I love to meet
our students' families and friends and help rejoice in the
accomplishment of attaining a graduate degree. The Masters degree in
library and information science is the passport for work in service of
our cultural heritage. There is no better feeling than knowing what you
do is important and can change lives - we make sure people have access
to the information they need in perpetuity. There is no expiration date
for what we do. There is no greater reward than seeing the spark of
understanding in someone you have helped.

I hope you will be able to join us for any or all of the following
events on Friday, May 9.

1. 3:00 Commencement in the Colonial Center
2. 4:30 Reception and Celebration of the SLIS Graduates in Davis
College 112
3. 5:30 Beta Phi Mu Inductions and SLIS Awards Ceremony in Davis
College 209

Also, we will be celebrating our Maine Lobster 3 graduates on August 3
at the Maple Hill Farm outside of Augusta, Maine.

If you missed the 1st annual conference on "Connecting Cultures and
Celebrating Cuentos" mark your calendars now for April 24 - 25, 2009.
We co-sponsored the conference with the College of Education and our Dr.
Jamie Naidoo and Dr. Julia Lopez-Robertson organized and planned the
full day event. More than 300 people came to learn about literature and
services for Latino youth. It was a wonderful celebration of
acceptance, respect and understanding. Please let Jamie know how much
we appreciate his good work! www.libsci.sc.edu/latinoconf

ALA is going to be in Anaheim, CA the end of June. We have some big
shot moments at the conference. Don't miss:

1. Our LISSA Student Chapter officers receive the ALA Student
Chapter of the Year award on Sunday right after the Alumni Tea.
www.libsci.sc.edu/lissaaward/lissafirst.htm
2. The Alumni Tea on Sunday afternoon!
3. Dr. Nancy Zimmerman receives the AASL lifetime achievement award
at the AASL Award Luncheon on Monday, the 30th of June at noon.

If you can't make these events, never fear! We have many ways to
keep you involved and feeling part of the SLIS community. You can watch
colloquia and presentations on the web, join our Facebook community,
visit our reference center in Second Life, meet with us live through
Adobe Connect, email, phone or stop in to say "Hey!" Let me know if
you want more information about any of these communication formats.

Welcome Andy Thomas as our first undergraduate advisor!
athomas@gwm.sc.edu He has been working hard to get our first bachelor
students for the information science degree matriculated.

Tilda Reeder, our graduate advisor is working hard getting our new
students cleared and our graduating students ready for work! You can
reach her at reedert@gwm.sc.edu for questions about the MLIS.

Stay in touch this summer, let us know what we can do for you and enjoy
the sun!

Yours,

sam