LSO Election – Spring 2009 Officers

It’s time to elect LSO officers for Spring 2009! Please vote for one candidate for each position and e-mail arizonalso@gmail.com with your selections. If the candidate has submitted an election statement, it follows their name. Please use your arizona.edu e-mail address and include your first and last name in the e-mail.

The election is only open to students currently enrolled in SIRLS. The identities of voters shall be held in confidence throughout the election process by the LSO election supervisors except as necessary to ascertain voter eligibility.

The election will close on Friday, December 26, 2008, at 11:59 pm.

LSO President:
Sho Ikeda

LSO Vice President/Treasurer:
Jacy Bell

LSO Webmaster/Listserv Manager:
Rebecca Bliquez

I have spent the last semester working to develop the new LSO website and have a lot of plans to update the current content and features to make it efficient, accessible and visually appealing. Please vote for me so that I can continue this work into the next semester.

Social Activities Coordinator:
Brenda Taylor

Virtual Student Liaison:
Leanne Armstrong

I have been a full-time virtual student for the past year while attending the University of Arizona and took some online classes from ASU while living in the Phoenix area. I am motivated and enthusiastic about helping virtual students create camaraderie amongst each other. As the Virtual Student Liaison, I would like to:

• Be accessible to students with concerns and issues regarding being a virtual student in order to pass the information to the school.

• Create a blog specifically geared toward those who will be graduating in May 2008.

• Set up a group rate at a hotel for students traveling into town and coordinate an open house at the hotel the evening prior to graduation. I would like to coordinate this event with the LSO and SLA groups so that all graduating students (and their families?) will be invited. Pre-registration would be required and probably a small fee if we don’t have the funds available.

• I have an idea of creating a virtual map that displays dots where students are located, then giving the students the opportunity to email other students through a gateway similar to Craigslist.

• Invite virtual student alumni to participate in blogs to share their thoughts and experiences.

SIRLS Policy Committee Representative:
Sarah Dahlen

SIRLS Curriculum Committee Representative:
Sarah Dahlen

What Makes a Good Advisor?

Have you had a really good advisor at SIRLS? What made this advisor so helpful and good? Here are a couple of thoughts to get your ideas churning:

• How did the professor communicate?
• What did the advisor communicate?
• Was the information timely or even proactive?
• If your advisor was not what you hoped for, what do you wish s/he would do?

Your comments will help to give direct feedback to the professors and advisors at SIRLS.

Thank you for adding your input!

Rachel Cannady
LSO: Faculty/Student Liaison

LSO 2008 Fall Election

Candidates for each position are listed in alphabetical order. Each candidate has submitted an election statement, which follows their name. Please select one candidate for each position and e-mail arizonalso@gmail.com with your selections. Please use your arizona.edu e-mail address and include your first and last name in the e-mail.

The election is only open to students currently enrolled in SIRLS. The identities of voters shall be held in confidence throughout the election process by the LSO election supervisors except as necessary to ascertain voter eligibility.

The election will close on Sunday, September 7 at 11:59 pm.

Return Your Library Books or Go Directly To Jail, Do Not Pass Go

From BoingBoing:

A judge has ordered JoAn Karkos of Lewiston, Maine to return two copies of It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health, which she checked out the Lewiston and Auburn public libraries last year.

In September, Karkos sent letters to the libraries, including checks to pay for the cost of the books. The letters said, in part, “I have been sufficiently horrified of the illustrations and sexually graphic, amoral, abnormal contents. I will not be returning the books.”

The judge has ordered Karkos, who is being held in contempt of court, to return the books and pay a $100 fine by Friday at 4pm. If she doesn’t comply, she’ll be arrested.

In 2007, NPR reported on the incident, providing several links, including a link to a letter Karkos wrote to the Sun Journal.

What makes a good online class?

The faculty wants our input on the very important issue: What makes a good online class? The more specific you are, the better your impact can be.

Here are some ideas to get your creative juices flowing:

* What are the do’s and don’ts for instructors from a student’s point of view?

* What are specific instances of  instruction, group work, assignments, or other “things” that worked well?

Your comments will help in the creation of a “best practices” document for on-line teaching.

Thank you for adding your input!

Rachel Cannady
LSO: Faculty/Student Liaison

New Semester, New Leadership, New Plans

As LSO president, I’d like to say hello to everyone and wish all SIRLS students, staff and faculty a great fall semester.  LSO has a lot planned for this term, and we look forward to making the organization a better representative of student interests and more active in faculty/student relations.  We are gearing up to make the blog into a forum for discussing faculty/student issues and we are also creating a SIRLS student online survey.  We are beginning to organize the fourth annual SIRLS Graduate Student Symposium and hope to see many student participants come November.  LSO also plans on hosting several other events in the fall including social and professional networking activities.

Please join us for our first meeting of the fall semester on Friday, September 5th at 6 pm in the SIRLS multipurpose room.  If you are a distance student and would like attend a meeting virtually, please e-mail me at ikeda [at] email.arizona.edu.  We’d love to see all students participate in our organization.

Sho Ikeda
LSO President

Call for Contributions to BiblioTech

BiblioTech accepts contributions on a rolling basis. We welcome book reviews; reports from professional conferences; ruminations on being an info pro student; brief thoughts on current trends in information technology; teaser versions of a paper you’re presenting at a conference; and more!

We plan to publish an issue at the end of March and in May, so please submit soon.

Contact the BiblioTech editor at lsobibliotech@gmail.com about your submission.

Panel Discussion on Tribal Librarianship

See the message below:

You are all invited to attend a panel discussion on Wednesday, December 5^th, between 12-1pm in the Special Collections Conference Room. The 5-member panel will include 3 of our current Knowledge River Graduate Assistants: Janet Irene Allen, Natalia de Roock and Annie Smith.  They attended the Inter-Tribal Librarian Conference in Oklahoma City and will discuss issues confronting tribal libraries.  Please bring your own lunch!!

Thanks,

Pat

Patricia Promis
Special Collections, Fine Arts & Humanities Team Leader
University of Arizona Library, A204b
1510 E. University Blvd.
P.O. Box 210055
Tucson, AZ 85721-0055

Symposium Abstracts Being Accepted NOW!

Consider submitting your abstract for the 3rd Annual SIRLS Graduate Student Symposium to be held on November 10th! You have a choice between a 25 minute or 50 minute presentation, or a poster session! This is a great low-pressure way to get experience presenting at a professional symposium while sharing your research and stories with the library community. Submissions being accepted online NOW. Feel free to contact me or Rene if you have any questions. Look forward to hearing from you!

ALA photos

Photos from ALA’s Library Day at the Hill

LSO’s Flickr account

LSO receives award at ALA

Also, search Flickr with keywords :SIRLS, LSO, ALA