SLA Early Career

Who better to advise on the value of SLA to students than our inaugural winner of the SLA Europe Early Career Conference Award, Verena Till.

She has put together some thoughts for you: The Value of Being an SLA Member - from the perspective of a student (pdf)

We produced a Special Student Edition of our Newsletter (pdf). See Newsletter Page for our current and previous SLA Europe News.

Awards

Early Career Conference Awards 2010  

We are pleased to announce the call for nominations for our 2010 ECCA recipients. Please see the Press Release, Helpful Tips and the Background Information documents.  Contact our Early Careers Co-Chairs for further information and eee our Early Career page.

Congratulations to the winners of our Early Career Conference Award (ECCA) for 2009

The Board of SLA Europe is delighted to announce the four winners of the SLA Europe Early Career Conference Award (ECCA) 2009. The winners, who will attend the annual SLA Centennial Conference in Washington, DC 14-17 June, 2009, are: Sara Batts, Annie Richens, Bethan Ruddock, and Laura Woods. They each had very strong recommendations and showed a clear commitment to becoming leaders in their profession.

Sara Batts graduated from City University in 2006 with an MSc Information Science (Distinction) and is a Senior Research Librarian at the law firm, Reed Smith. She is currently working on a PhD part-time in Information Science at Loughborough University.

Annie Richens has been working in the library and information science (LIS) field for three years. In 2008, she earned her MA Library and Information Studies from University College London (Distinction).

Bethan Ruddock earned her MA Library and Information Management (Distinction) from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2008. Working out of the University of Manchester, she is a Challenge Fund Support Officer on Copac, a national union catalogue, based at Mimas, a national data centre supported by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and the ESRC.

Laura Woods is currently a student at City University and will earn her MSc Library and Information Studies in 2009. She works part-time in the evening at the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn and will shortly  begin working at the law firm, Davies Arnold Cooper.

Three SLA Divisions are co-sponsoring the four Award winners with SLA Europe. Business & Finance (B&F) will co-sponsor two Award winners again this year -- Sara Batts and Annie Richens. Bethan Ruddock is co-sponsored by Insurance and Employee Benefits (IEB) and Laura Woods by the Leadership and Management. Our  industry co-sponsors are Books 24/7, Glen Recruitment, Sue Hill and TFPL.

The Award covers all expenses, including transportation, food, lodging and incidental expenses, as well as conference registration and one-year membership in SLA. In return, the Award winners participate and assist in their co-sponsoring Division’s events during conference and report on their experience in the Division and SLA Europe newsletters.

The SLA Europe ECCA, now in its third year, is given to Library and Information Science (LIS) professionals who have been in the field for five years or less, or are currently enrolled in a European graduate-level programme in the LIS field.

Applicants must have excellent English language skills and have never attended an SLA annual conference. The application process involves three steps: writing an essay, securing a recommendation from their line manager, or a current faculty member in their programme, and providing an up-to-date resume. Application guidelines for the SLA Europe Early Career Conference Award 2010 will be published on the SLA Europe website (www.sla-europe.org) at the end of 2009.

In 2007, the inaugural year of the award, it was given jointly by SLA Europe and the Business & Finance (B&F) Division of SLA, to Verena Till, a Library and Information Management student at Stuttgart Media University, Germany.

Past Winners

2008 - Seattle (pdf)

Hannah Lewin, Sarah Hammond, Emma Dhesai and Sandy Peterson

2007 - Denver (English pdf / German pdf)

Verena Till

The prize, launched in 2007, includes a certificate and a £100 cheque. The intention is to continue to make these awards to students at the four participating universities until 2011.

Congratulations .... to our Student Dissertation Prize Winners for 2009!

Richard Alleman of London Metropolitan University, Jill Rutt of the University of Sheffield and Hardy Schwamm of Loughborough University

Full details. More on our award winners and their dissertations appear in SLA Europe News.

SLA Europe Dissertation Prize Winners for 2008
Betty Rabar  (London Metropolitan)
Clare Sinclair  (University of Sheffield)
Frances Warrell  (University of Brighton)

SLA Europe Dissertation Prize Winners 2007
Rachel Adams (Sheffield University)
Victoria Louise Bird (Loughborough)
Ben Bose (Brighton University)
Tanya O’Rourke (London Metropolitan University)

Left to right: Vicky Bird, Rachel Adams, Tanya O'Rourke, Ben Bose

Interviews with the award winners and summaries of their dissertation findings appear in SLA Europe News.

SLA Europe will continue to sponsor the award through 2011.

The faculty in each programme will continue to be responsible for selecting a prize winner from each of their respective programmes. If there is no dissertation of sufficient quality relating to special librarianship to qualify for the prize, SLA Europe will hold back the award to that programme for that year.

Other SLA Europe Awards:                                                                                 SLA Europe Information Professional

Mentoring

Mentoring can make a difference to a career. Gwenda Sippings, an information consultant with extensive experience of mentoring, has prepared some mentoring guidelines for SLA Europe (pdf) outlining the advantages of being involved in a mentoring programme.

If you have any queries, please contact Liz Blankson-Hemans.

The SLA Chapter Cabinet Ideas Bank Wiki also has a section on Mentoring

Reaching Out to LIS Students and Faculty
In 2006, SLA Europe formed a sub-committee to investigate ways to reach out to current and future Library and Information Science (LIS) Masters’ students and their faculty. Our aim was to make LIS students and their faculty members aware of the benefits of joining SLA and participating in the activities of SLA Europe.

We held a brainstorming meeting in May 2006 in London with faculty from five programmes based relatively close to London. Attending were: John H. Bowman University College, London; Sheila Corrall, University of Sheffield; Juliet Eve, Brighton University; Catherine Kelly, London Metropolitan University; and, Derek P. Stephens, Loughborough University. (See SLA Europe News, 2006-2 p 5 and 7)

Other Activities
The SLA Europe Board had also offered visiting lectures to the schools contacted if there was an opportunity to teach on the more practical aspects of special libraries. Sylvia James, SLA Europe Treasurer and SLA Main Board Treasurer, taught a 3 hour session for Brighton University on Collection Development in Business Libraries in December 2006.

Lyndsay Rees-Jones, Bethan Ruddock - Co-Chairs, Early Career