Once a year, RMSLA awards the Rebecca Jackson Memorial Scholarship to a library and information science student who has an interest in pursuing a career as a special librarian or an information professional. The scholarship is named for Rebecca Jackson, an outstanding chapter member who was dedicated to mentoring library school students.

This year’s winner, Julie Teglovic, was awarded $1200 on Monday night at RMSLA’s holiday party. Julie, who has worked in public, academic, and special libraries, says that she finds work in nontraditional library settings the most interesting. Read about Julie, her accomplishments, and her professional activities in the feature below.

About Julie Teglovic

Brief Bio:

I’m taking my time finishing up my MLIS at the University of Denver while working a couple of jobs (see below) and living in Denver.

Employment:

I’m a Research Fellow at the Library Research Service (part of the Colorado State Library), where I do a lot of statistical analysis and report writing on a variety of library issues. I’m also the Admin. Assistant at the Colorado Library Consortium, which is a nonprofit organization that offers courier service, consulting, continuing education, and cooperative purchasing to all Colorado libraries.  I’ve done stints paging at a public library and copy-cataloging in an academic one over the past couple years, too.

Education:

I got my BA in English and American literature from NYU and am still at DU working on my MLIS now. I’m still really interested in literature and critical theory and will probably want to return to studying those more formally at some point.

Involvement with RMSLA:

I became an officer in the DU student SLA chapter in my first year of school and have remained highly involved with the organization since then. I’ve been active in RMSLA as well, providing administrative and registration support at annual meetings for the past few years. I served on the Colorado Association of Law Libraries-sponsored Spotlight on Your Career Committee this year, and I am currently the Student Representative on the Colorado Libraries Collaborate! Committee. I’m also a member of several ALA round tables concerned with issues in special librarianship, including the Library Research Round Table and the GLBT Round Table.

As an MLIS student and an information professional, what do you find valuable about RMSLA?

I find the range of opportunities outside traditional library environments–and by extension the people that pursue them–very refreshing. It seems like the most interesting careers are really in these margins and overlaps, in the spaces we might not even consider (because we haven’t been told how to think about them) as library students. Careers in research, in science/medicine, in publishing, in government or NGOs, in corporate settings–RMSLA gives you access to the people that are doing these kinds of work and a different framework for thinking about job paths in LIS.

Why would you recommend RMSLA to other MLIS students?

The people, above all. It’s given me a very valuable network of professionals doing lots of different interesting types of work.

Currently Reading:

I always have a few different books in progress to suit different moods. I really enjoy the titles from Library Juice Press; I hope to start an internship with them next month. I’m trying to brush up a bit on the history of and current crises in (mainly academic) publishing to prepare. I’m almost done with Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century, and dipping into The Best European Fiction 2011 and The Collected Poems of Weldon Kees (he was Director of BCR in Denver in the late 30s!) on busses and trains and before bed. I picked up the new Jeffrey Eugenides book but it’s pretty annoying so far.

Hobbies, Etc.:

I enjoy clothes more than I’m comfortable with. I love thrift stores and used clothing. I do hot yoga, listen to a lot of political and humor podcasts, and watch a lot of depressing Swedish movies from the 60s. I enjoy proofreading, editing, and making up silly words.

To contribute to the Rebecca Jackson Memorial Scholarship fund, please visit http://rockymountain.sla.org/scholarship/contribute-to-the-scholarship-fund/

Each year, RMSLA awards the Rebecca Jackson Memorial Scholarship to a student currently enrolled in a library/information science master’s degree program. Candidates must be a resident of the RMLSA region (Colorado, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming) and have an interest in the information profession or special librarianship. A typical scholarship is around $1000, but the amount awarded depends on the funds raised through donations and the annual scholarship fundraiser.

Applicants can download the scholarship application form and review eligibility requirements here. Applications must be postmarked, emailed, or faxed by midnight on October 1, 2011.

Scholarship contributions are accepted throughout the year at the RMSLA scholarship contribution page.

For questions contact Kendra Spahr, RMSLA Academic Relations Chair, academics@rockymountain.sla.org

Good Luck!

Kendra Spahr
Business, Economics & Mathematical Sciences Librarian
University Libraries
University of Northern Colorado
Campus Box 48
Michener 109
Greeley, CO 80639
Office: 970-351-1533
Fax: 970-351-2963
Kendra.spahr@unco.edu
www.unco.edu

Check out this photo of very happy mortar-boarded Denver-area distance education graduates of the School of Library and Information Management (SLIM) at Emporia State University, Emporia, Kansas.

Classes for Colorado Cohort #12 begin in January 2012. See program details at http://slim.emporia.edu/index.php/locations/denver/

Spring Tour for DU’s Special Library Association
The Barco Library at DU’s Cable Center
Saturday April 16th 1:30pm – 3pm
RSVP to cbaker55@du.edu

On this tour, you’ll not only learn about the collections, but also get the chance to ask about their collection development work, about their fee-based services, and about the day-to-day work of digitizing, transcribing, cataloguing, and preserving diverse materials. And I say it’s worth it to go just ask our tour guide, managing librarian Lisa Backman, about her work here in Denver and how she got to this position.

The Cable Center is on campus at 2000 Buchtel Blvd.

Check out the library\’s website: http://www.cablecenter.org/content.cfm?id=19

Great article in Colorado Libraries:
http://coloradolibrariesjournal.org/?q=node/41

The Barco Library in The Cable Center is the only resource devoted exclusively to cable telecommunications. If you have yet to visit, this is a great opportunity to see a special library that collects very diverse materials and because of it’s association with DU and mix of free and advanced fee-based services, straddles the divide between academic, special, and public libraries.

In addition to monograph and serial titles, the Barco Library collects manuscripts, personal papers, awards, and marketing artifacts representing current companies and those that no longer exist. Through the years the photograph collections have grown to 100,000 images, many of which are soon to be online with the completion of their digitization project. The Library has over 7000 hours of media ranging from the first original HBO program to examples of programming picked by networks as examples of “good shows.”  The Technology Archive includes more than 2,000 pieces of cable television equipment, including examples of pieces used for sending and receiving signals.

Finally, the Oral and Video History Program gathers perspectives from people who played key roles in creating and growing the industry. All the library’s collections combine to provide a unique historical retrospective of the cable industry from 1950 to the present.

-Corey Baker

Please join the DU Student Chapter for their quarterly membership meeting Monday, February 28 from 6:20p-7:00p at the University of Denver's Katherine Ruffatto Hall (1999 E. Evans Ave) room 202.  We will be discussing our upcoming Spring quarter events!