MSc Information Management Student, Phillip Gatzke

I’m pleased to find out that one of our MSc Information Management students, Phillip Gatzke, has won one of the SLA Europe Early Career Conference Awards. This award is co-sponsored by the SLA Business and Finance Division. Phillip will be off to New Orleans in June for the SLA annual conference with his travel, accommodation and conference fees being covered by the award.

Phillip says, “I am very happy and grateful that they selected me as one of the two SLA Early Career Conference Award Winners 2010. It is a great opportunity to meet information professionals from all around the world, to share experiences and get insights from the conferences. Together with a mentor, we will be guided through the conference and attending the program events and meetings. I am really looking forward to a very interesting time in New Orleans, USA.”

Well done to Phillip – I wish I was going myself!

The result of the voting by SLA (Special Libraries Association) on whether to change its name to the Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals was announced yesterday with a majority voting not to change. This is an excerpt from the official announcement: “The Special Libraries Association (SLA) announced the results of its association-wide vote on a new name today. Voting in record numbers, SLA members failed to approve a proposal to change the organization’s name to the Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals. 50 percent of those members eligible to vote participated in the referendum, with 2071 voting yes and 3225 voting no.”

Personally, as a member of the SLA I am disappointed and had voted for a change. Although the proposed new name was not without its faults (being rather wordy was one of them), I felt it recognised the diverse range of roles that many SLA members have and the need to emphasise the strategic importance of information and the people that manage it. Following this decision, I imagine that the organisation will continue to move away from spelling out the SLA acronym. The only mention of the “L” word on their website this morning was at the bottom of the page in very small print. SLA

chessset.jpgThis year’s SLA Europe (Special Libraries Association) prize for best student dissertation has been awarded to Frances Warrell for her research into the National Chess Library, a special collection at UCH (University Centre Hastings), part of the University of Brighton. Frances used McCarthy’s 4 Ps of marketing as a framework to inform a marketing policy for the collection. The work was undertaken for her dissertation as part of her MA Information Studies degree at the University of Brighton. She will be presented with her award by members of the SLA at the official opening of the National Chess Library by Charles Clarke MP, on June 10th 2008.

 The SLA Europe are currently sponsoring a number of student awards at LIS departments around the UK; this is the second year the prize has been awarded. Last year’s winner, Ben Bose (see posting from May 2007) has gone on to work with a local company, icrossing (formerly spannerworks).

Following the success of the 2007 SLA Europe Student award which paid for a European Library and Information student to attend the annual SLA conference, SLA Europe is pleased to announce it will be able to send four students to the SLA annual conference in Seattle, Washington in June 2008. These awards will include all travel, accommodation and conference attendance costs. Details of these awards can be found on the link below:

http://www.sla-europe.org/awards/students/students_a.html

A PDF application form can be downloaded below:

http://www.sla-europe.org/awards/students/documents/2008SLAEuropeStudentAwardPressReleaseNov07_000.pdf

I hope this is of interest to all postgraduate library and information students studying in Europe.

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