Elias Tzoc blog!

Today is my last day at work -before the break- and as I’m getting ready to update and finish a “personal statement” for a report, the topics of Tech Skills & Diversity keep coming up and they seem to maintain some momentum/significance in my work and expectations for 2011. Two good examples are:

ALA Discovering Librarianship, my participation in this program will definitely play a major role in my diversity/service work in the next three years. This week, we had the very first webinar and Miguel Figueroa provided an overview of some (historical) data in the field of librarianship, higher education and the US in general; a copy of the Diversity Count Publication is available on the ALA website. The Discovering Librarianship program will officially kick off in January at ALA MidWinter in San Diego. The first year will focus on training (e.g. recruitment and marketing skills); the second year will be the actual field work (e.g. attending career fairs); and the third year will be devoted to assessment. In the short-term, I’m very excited to join this national and diverse group of people who are already involved in diversity initiatives; in the mid-term, I look forward to talking/working with some high/college students; and finally if everything goes as planned (as it should) I think this ALA program will make some key contributions to support existing or new diversity initiatives in higher education at the national level.

2011 Code4Lib Conference, yesterday I received some very good news (something like a x-mas present) the Code4Lib Scholarship Committee has selected my application to receive one of the Minority Scholarships to attend the 2011 Conference in Bloomington, IN. The scholarships are sponsored by Oregon State University and the Western North Carolina Library Network, thanks to all! This will be an excellent venue to meet a large group of library technologists with extraordinary contributions/roles in the fast-changing world of information access and research in higher education. I look forward to attending my very first tech-conference in February and I definitely hope to learn some effective strategies for coding and/or tweaking. I’m positive this experience will be a good addition to a work in progress about professional opportunities for new librarians from underrepresented groups. See you in Indiana

Anyway, now time for a needed break and Feliz Año Nuevo 2011!

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