Category: BRASS Notes

The committee’s main business at ALA Annual in New Orleans will be selecting a topic for the BRASS Forum at the 2012 annual meeting. We’d love to hear from BRASS members who have suggestions for topics they would like to see presented. This is your chance to let us know the kinds of programs which would best fill your professional development needs. Suggestions can be emailed in advance to the committee chair or presented at the meeting in person. We look forward to hearing from you and putting together some great ideas for next year.

Lydia LaFaro, Chair
lafaro@asu.edu

We are pleased to say that our committee has planned a wonderful program for ALA Annual. The Small Business Financing forum will be led by a panel of experts including representatives from the Louisiana Small Business Administration and local financial institutions. They will cover different kinds of financing available to small businesses around the country. The committee will also have two new Public Libraries Briefcase published by the end of the year.

Elizabeth Malafi, Chair

The committee is pleased to offer Start Me Up: Information Mining for Entrepreneurs, a publisher’s forum to be held Sunday, June 26 at ALA Annual Conference. Representatives from BizMiner, Business Decision Academic, ReferenceUSA, and SimplyMap will discuss how their products can be used by entrepreneurs to mine information to use in starting their businesses.

Nathan Rupp, Chair

One of the most highly anticipated programs at Annual is the BRASS program which will take place Monday, June 27 from 8:00 am – 12:00 pm. This year Mark Andersen, BRASS chair, leads the BRASS program: The Business of Social Media: How to Plunder the Treasure Trove!

Presenters include Scott Brown, the owner of the Social Information Group and popular workshop leader for SLA’s recent webinars on using social media; Laurie Bridges, librarian at Oregon State University who has spoken and written extensively on the use of social media; and Stephen Abram, a leading technology commentator. Presenters will demonstrate how business can successfully target social networking applications and how librarians can better position their reference services and collections to assist business users with this exciting new medium.

What better way to advertise this program and share information about this program on Facebook? Visit the BRASS NOLA Business of Social Media Facebook page and join the conversation. And if this program interests you, please "like" it. Tell your friends and colleagues, too.

Breakfast, which is graciously provided by Standard & Poor’s, will begin at 8:00 am with actual program starting with introductions beginning at 8:30 am.

The hard working members of the 2011 Program Planning Committee are:

Mark Andersen, BRASS Chair
Anthony B. Lin
Betsy Clementson
Ed Hahn
Jason Dewland
Julia Martin
Laura B. Carscaddon
Mary K VanUllen
Paul Brothers
Ann Fiegen, BRASS program chair

 
Ann Fiegen, 2010-2011 Chair

Does your library use Facebook, instant messaging, or Twitter? These are just some of the types of new communication channels that libraries are using to reach and serve their patrons. Please join the Business Reference Discussion Group at ALA Annual for New Media at the Reference Desk, a discussion on new media and how it is affecting the reference desk. The discussion will take place on Sunday, June 26, 10:30 am – 12:00 pm. A brief membership meeting will precede the discussion.

Edward Hahn, 2010-2011 Chair

The RUSA-BRASS Education Committee cordially invites you to attend the pre-conference Business Reference 101: Core Competencies for Business Librarianship. The pre-conference will be held on Friday, June 24, 2011, from 9:00 am – 5:00 pm at the Morian Convention Center, Room 343, during the 2011 ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans.

Business Reference 101 provides an overview of business resources and collection development techniques in business and related topics. The pre-conference is designed for beginning business librarians, generalists who have assumed responsibility as business librarians, or any academic, public, or special librarian interested in the field of business reference.

Presenters are Rhonda Kleiman, Economic Development Manager at the Library System of Lancaster,and Bobray Bordelon, Economics & Finance Librarian/Data Services Librarian at Princeton University.

Advance registration for this preconference runs until May 13, 2011. Get some of your colleagues together and take advantage of group pricing. For more information including registration and pricing, please visit the RUSA registration page.

The BRASS Education Committee mission is to study and review the educational needs of business reference librarians and other librarians involved in providing business reference services; to explore and encourage the development of curriculum and continuing education programs in the area; to sponsor educational activities in the area; and to promote communication between the profession and library educators. In order to fulfill our mission, our committee offers preconferences (Business 101, MBA in a Day), Business Research LibGuides (Best of the Best Business Web Sites and Selected Core Competencies for Business Reference), and other activities. For more information about our committee, please visit our ALA Connect page.

Leticia Camacho, Chair

The BRASS Emerald Research Awards are two $5,000 cash awards, sponsored by Emerald Group Publishing, for ALA members seeking support in conducting research in business librarianship. The 2011 recipients of the award are:

1. Peter Jasco, University of Hawaii
2. Diane K. Campbell, Rider University Library and Ronald G. Cook, Rider University

Todd Hines, 2010-2011 Chair

Congratulations to Nicolette Warisse Sosulski, business librarian at the Portage District Library in Portage, Michigan, who has been chosen as this year’s winner of the Gale Cengage Learning Award for Excellence in Business Librarianship.

Sosulski was chosen by our committee because of her demonstrated commitment to excellence in business librarianship. She has done everything from create programs on finance and job hunting for patrons, to instructing library science students on business research, to serving as the chair of the Michigan Library Association’s Economic Development Community of Practice, and more. She serves a diverse group of people at her library, and has worked hard to meet a vast array of patron needs, including job hunters in a horrendous economy, small business concerns, youth financial education, and fellow business librarian training.

Time and again her warmth, energy, enthusiasm, and dedication were noted by her nominators. She has been described as being “at the heart of the business librarian community in Michigan,” Sosulski is a stellar example of what a business librarian can be. To read more about Sosulski, please see the full press release on the RUSA blog.

Penny Scott, 2010-2011 Chair

The BRASS Gale Cengage Student Travel Award, sponsored by Gale Cengage Learning, is a $1,000 cash award and a one-year membership in the Business Reference and Services Section (BRASS) of RUSA. The award is given to a student enrolled in an ALA accredited master’s degree program to attend the ALA Annual Conference. The applicant should have demonstrated interest in a career as a business reference librarian.

The committee is pleased to announce the 2011 award recipient: Danielle Salomon, a GSLIS student at UCLA. Congratulations, Danielle!

Doreen Harwood, 2010-2011 Chair

Suzanne Kaller is the 2011 recipient of the BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award. The award, sponsored by Morningstar, offers $1,000 in travel funds to ALA’s Annual Conference. Ms. Kaller is a Business Librarian for the Arapahoe Library District in Centennial, Colorado. She has an MBA and MLIS from the University of Denver, and a BA in Economics from Queens College City University of New York. She was instrumental in the formation of the Business Services Interest Group of the Colorado Association of Libraries, and is actively involved in four local Chamber of Commerce organizations. One of her colleagues said it best: “Suzanne is an outstanding example of how a business librarian can help local businesses (and our economy) to grow during these tough economic times”.

Congratulations, Suzanne!

Patricia Kenly, 2010-2011 Chair

The BRASS Publications Committee is pleased to have developed a handy Master Schedule of BRASS events for the upcoming annual conference. Download or print your copy now at the main ALA RUSA BRASS page. We hope it helps you to enjoy a more “BRASStastic” conference!

In other news, we continue to work on keeping BRASS Web pages fresh and up to date. Hyun-duck Chung, our trusty BRASS webmistress, has incorporated dynamic content into the BRASS Events & News page to keep members up to date on BRASS and RUSA goings-on.

The Publications and Communications Committee will hold their annual meeting at conference on Saturday, June 25, 2011, from 4:00 – 5:30 pm in the Regal Suite of the Royal Sonesta Hotel. Interested in our committee? Come join us!

We look forward to seeing everyone at conference!

Carol Smith, 2010-2011 chair