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Conference Funding Opportunities

Searching for funding to attend a conference? Start now. It may take a bit of sleuthing and time to find travel funds. Try a variety of keywords, as well, if you’re searching through books or databases of grants, such as professional development, conference, continuing education, etc. and funding, grant, scholarship, funding, etc. Here are four sources of funding, but this list is by no means exhaustive. Ask your state and local library associations if they supply funding for state or national conferences. You might also find funding from a non-library organization that supports professional development.

Many of the principles expressed in the ALA Fact Sheet #24—Library Fund Raising: A Selected Annotated Bibliography—may be used to find funders that may also grant money for individual travel. If you live near a Foundation Center Library/Learning Center, stop by to access the Foundation Grants to Individuals Online . It’s also available for online a one-month trial for $9.95.

If you know of a source for conference funding, please send it to the Editor.

Association of College and Research Librarians (ACRL) National Conference

ACRL offers a number of competitive scholarships for librarians to attend the ACRL National Conference—typically they are for those in the profession less than 5 years, some for library school students, and this year they are adding one for a Canadian and one for a Mexican in honor of our international agreements with CACUL and CONPAB. Call 1-800-545-2433, ext. 2519, for more information

American Association of School Librarians National Conference

Bound-To-Stay-Bound sponsors one person from each state to the AASL national conference. The scholarship is administered by individual state associations. Questions regarding applications may be sent by e-mail to Linda Mays at lmays@ala.org.

Ebsco Conference Scholarship

This annual award consisting of $1,000 for actual reimbursed expenses is designed to allow librarians to attend the ALA’s Annual Conference. The deadline is December 1.

Support Staff to Attend ALA Annual Conference

The Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) is pleased to announce the establishment of a Support Staff Grant. Underwritten by a generous contribution from Sage Publications, the Support Staff Grant will make it possible for an eligible individual (or individuals) to attend ALA Annual in Chicago in June 2005.

Eligibility Requirements: Currently employed in a full time support staff position; minimum of three years of experience in an area of technical services (acquisitions, cataloging, collection development/management, preservation of library materials, serials); no previous attendance at an ALA annual meeting; membership in ALA or ALCTS is not required.

Successful candidates will be required to submit a brief report describing their experiences at the annual conference. This report will be published in the post-conference issue of the ALCTS Newsletter Online and will also be shared with the sponsor. The ALCTS Membership Committee will provide mentoring support for each candidate.

To apply: Send a cover letter, resume and a brief essay (ca. 250 words) summarizing the reasons why attending the 2005 Annual Meeting of the American Library Association would be beneficial. A letter of reference from the applicant’s supervisor, indicating the employer’s support for the application is also required.

Applications should be sent by December 1, 2004, to: Dale Swensen e-mail: Dale_Swensen@byu.edu.

Successful applicants will be notified in January. All necessary travel arrangements will be handled by ALCTS.

Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) to Attend ALA National Conference

This grant is funded by the Baker and Taylor Company. The two grants of $1,000 each are awarded to librarians who work directly with young adults in either a public or school library to enable them to attend the Annual Conference for the first time. Applications must be received in the YALSA office by December 1.

REQUIREMENTS FOR APPLICATION ARE: YALSA personal membership (preferably for at least two years); one to ten years experience working with teenagers; no previous attendance at an Annual ALA Conference. Mail one original and nine copies of completed applications and supporting statements to: 50 East Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611.

Maine Libraries May be Affected by Proposed Tax Cap

The Maine Library Association affirms the importance of meaningful property tax reform. The Maine Taxpayers’ Action Network resolution, also known as the Palesky Proposal tax cap measure, appearing on the November 2004 ballot, would have numerous unintended consequences, including the devastation and even elimination of many publicly funded local Maine libraries. The Maine Library Association vigorously opposes its passage. MORE

Balancing the Books

By Elysha Tenenbaum

A plunge in state funding for UC Berkeley’s library could jeopardize its top-notch standing, after two years of heavy cuts has lead to tight staffing, shorter reference hours and slower service.

Assistants are up to their necks in unshelved books, and fewer staff members are available to assist students in navigating library resources.

The library’s operating budget was slashed $1.4 million this year, leaving the budgeted $4 million behind its funding level two years ago.

"We’ve had to tighten our belts everywhere," said Tom Leonard, the university librarian. The cuts imperil both the library’s collections and staff.

Publishing price inflation in the 90s and decreased state support prompted Chancellor Robert Berdahl to allocate $5.5 million to restore the library’s slumping collections and operations.

The extra cash led the library to three years of stability. But that cushion started wearing down in 2002.

"Where we are today is getting back to close to where we were in 1998 when we needed help," said Mike Rancer, library chief administrative officer.

While the collections budget traditionally receives support from private donors, extra hands in the library are usually dependent on state support.

In order to keep library services steady, staff members have been taking the brunt of the budget cuts, Rancer said.

Twenty-four staff members voluntarily left their positions with early retirement incentives this month. The exodus of staff members rounds out an 18-month hiring freeze that eliminated 60 staff members, including language and computer specialists, cataloguers and administrative staff.

"The workloads are enormous right now throughout the library in almost every department," Rancer said. "There are times when we just say we can’t do it."

Declining staff support means more than just longer lines and slower processing speeds for library users.

Specialty libraries such as the Physics and East Asian libraries have been left temporarily without librarians after several senior staff members retired early this year, leaving researchers without experts to help navigate reference materials.

The East Asian Library has stopped expanding its Chinese collection altogether, said library Director Peter Zhou. And with two Chinese librarians retiring early in the last five months, the library is left without a Chinese specialist qualified to select books.

Shifting staff members into different positions could be a solution, but it is sometimes impossible when working with specialists, Zhou said. The library plans to hire two replacement librarians, but the searches could take as long as a year, he said.

As cash declines on the operational side, the university’s esteemed library collection has been able to hold state funding levels steady.

But with a $600,000 deficit this year, campus libraries can no longer afford to meet the escalating costs of maintaining collections.

With subscription rates for academic journals rising rapidly, libraries have been forced to reduce their paper collections for the past two years.

More than 700 printed academic journal titles have been slashed or reduced this year.

This cut in journal offerings leaves faculty questioning whether the library can maintain its ranking among leading top universities.

"It’s easy to understand that if every year we are buying a smaller percentage of important scholarly works, that is not a good trend," Leonard said.

The Association of Resource [sic] Libraries-the most respected organization that issues library rankings-gives marks according to a library’s collection size and staff, Leonard said.

Though the library’s paper collection may falter in comparison to those of private universities, Leonard said UC Berkeley is a leader in modernization of library resources, something unaccounted for when it comes to ranking.

UC Berkeley libraries are ranked third in the nation, only trailing behind Harvard and Yale, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. But as the library moves into the digital age with declining state support, keeping that slot will be a challenge.

Digitizing the library’s journal and other scholarly publishing collections remains a top priority because researchers prefer looking through online databases, Leonard said.

"Berkeley faculty is a pretty sophisticated group, and they don’t want us to be a book museum," he said.

The trouble of shuffling through rolls of newspaper microfilm can be eliminated as newspaper collections are converted to searchable online databases, Leonard said.

Yet the conversion to digitized media brings with it more costs: constantly updating outdated technology to access older publications and converting to a staff that is specialized in computer skills.

The staffing crunch doesn’t help at a time when the library needs to hire more specialists, Leonard said.

Elysha Tenenbaum is a Contributing Writer covering higher education for the Daily Californian. This article was written Friday, September 17, 2004.