GENERAL NEWS: Spring Graduation 2009, awards, rankings and tenure promotions (Oh my!) and Five Things

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

It’s graduation this Friday! My favorite ceremony! I am so looking forward to seeing our graduates begin their professional lives and prepare to be our future leaders, movers and shakers! In addition to our celebration on Friday, May 8 at Davis College in Columbia, SC we will also hold graduation ceremonies for our Virginia and West Virginia students in Waynesboro, VA on August 22. I love having something to look forward to ;-}

I hear that good things happen in threes and we definitely have three major events to sing about! I list them in order of occurrence. First, Ann Stewart Plein, a University of South Carolina graduate student in the School of Library and Information Science’s distance education master’s degree program from Morgantown, W. Va., has won the Thomas Cooper Library Student Book Collecting Award for her collection of book binding designs by Margaret Armstrong.

“Margaret Armstrong was one of the most notable book cover designers of the late 19th and 20th century and one of only two women in the field. She broke ground at a time when women more typically worked as seamstresses or teachers.” Plein’s collection, “Beautiful Bindings: The Designs of Margaret Armstrong,” will be on display at the university’s Thomas Cooper Library through May.

Second, the USC School of Library and Information Science recently received high marks for our program in the U.S. News & World Report “America’s Best Colleges Guide” for 2009. We ranked No. 2 for our school-library media program. “These rankings are especially gratifying, in that they highlight our academic excellence,” University President Harris Pastides says. “This news reaffirms our commitment to providing our students a top-quality education, thereby ensuring that we are providing a well-educated workforce for South Carolina and our nation.”

I am pleased with the rankings, which included an overall program rank of No. 17, out of 62 accredited schools nationally. Being ranked No. 2 in the nation for our school-library media program validates our mission to produce the best qualified leaders in our field. It helps us compete with an ever-challenging distance education market that recruits students without regard to geographical boundaries. Our faculty, staff and students are the best. Being in the top 20 is important and as we continue to improve and grow, we will continue to receive good rankings.

School-library media student, Roxanne Spray of Columbia, says she will be ultra-prepared when she earns her master's degree in May. "I really do believe that school library media specialists and programs are crucial to students' success and achievements," she says. "The professors, classes, and internships have helped me blend the theoretical and practical, so I'm ready to fill my role and be a leader and have a high-functioning media program on the first day of school." Of the ranking, she says, "Certainly it's nice to have that kind of national validation for a program that I already knew was wonderful."

THIRD, Dr. Jennifer Arns and Dr. Feili Tu are tenured and promoted to associate professors when the USC Board of Trustees votes at their June meeting. This is wonderful news and shows that our scholarship is of worth to the university and our profession as well as to our school. Please join me in saying “Good Work, Kudos, Thank You and more. . .” to Dr. Arns and Dr. Tu. We are so very proud of you!


So yes, good things come in threes and now I am ready for the next trio! In the meantime, here are five things to read or do:

1. Each year a panel of museum professionals reviews the sites nominated for Best of the Web awards, and honors the best work in the field. This year two of the MW2009 Best of the Web Awards go to:

Brooklyn Museum Collection, http://www.brooklynmuseum.org for Best Overall; Educational Site winner: Tate Kids http://kids.tate.org.uk/

2. Check this out if you are into new generation cataloging--Survival of the fittest tag: Folksonomies, findability, and the evolution of information organization [First Monday]

http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2447/2175

3. Print a book while you wait? Revolutionary Espresso Book Machine launches in London [Guardian]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/apr/24/espresso-book-machine-launches

4. The U.N.'s World Digital Library [Time]

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1892916,00.html

5. Online Catalogs: What Users and Librarians Want [OCLC]

http://www.oclc.org/reports/onlinecatalogs/default.htm

Let me know if there is anything we can do for you. Don’t forget to hug a teacher, it is the end of another semester! You can start with our wonderful faculty.

Yours,

sam