NASIG Newsletter

COMMITTEE UPDATE – LSOC
[Ed. note: Excerpt from the committee report for the September Executive Board meeting.]

LIBRARY SCHOOL OUTREACH
Marcella Lesher and Sarah Sutton, Co-Chairs
September, 2008

NARRATIVE OF ACTIVITIES SINCE LAST REPORT
Recruited Library School Ambassadors:

• Eugenia Beh, University of Texas at Austin
• Cynthia Porter, University of Arizona
• Alita Pierson, University of Washington
• Angela Dresselhaus, Indiana University
• Emma Cryer, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill

Developed supervisory relationships between LSO Committee members and ambassadors.  Each experienced committee member is paired with a new committee member for guidance. Each committee member is responsible for recruiting and guiding one or two ambassadors.

Created a new Google Group for Library School Ambassadors where they can communicate with each other and with the committee including creating an information page for their school that contains contact information, alumni who are NASIG members, recent NASIG award recipients from the school, and where they can share ideas for promoting NASIG and NASIG events.

The committee worked to make ambassadors “visible” at the 2008 conference in Phoenix with a sticker or ribbon for their name badges.  This stirred some inquiries about the ambassador program and increased interest among NASIG members about serving as ambassadors.  We also scheduled our first library school get together during the conference.  It was not well attended (although we did not expect a large turnout).  We attribute the lack of participation mainly to the timing of the event, which occurred just as the dine-arounds were leaving.  We attempted to schedule the event prior to the dine-around departure but they were rescheduled for earlier departures. Next year we plan to schedule library school get togethers at a time that will be more convenient for potential attendees.

During the fall, we plan to work with Awards & Recognition to promote NASIG awards at our ambassadors’ library schools by marketing the Student Grant Award to master’s level students and the Marcia Tuttle Award to doctoral students.  We also plan to continue to recruit ambassadors for the University of North Texas and San Jose State and University and two additional schools in order to meet our goal of having 15 ambassadors by the end of the year.