This year, at the BCLA Awards Reception held at the BC Library Conference on Fri. April 17th, Ken Cooley (Incoming BCLA President, University of Victoria), presented this award to Stephen Blaeser and Ryan Vernon of the BC College and Institute Library Services (CILS).   CILS is located at Langara College and funded by the B.C. Ministry of Advanced Education and Labour Market Development to provide information services in alternate formats for B.C. post-secondary students with print disabilities: http://www.langara.bc.ca/cils/

As Ken noted during the award presentation: “In making their selection, the ALPS Award Committee noted Stephen’s and Ryan’s innovative approach to supporting print-disabled clients. The committee was particularly impressed by these librarians’ commitment to the principles of service, collaboration, teaching and training, and information sharing across institutions and sectors, within and beyond the library community.”

Congratulations once again to Stephen and Ryan! And many thanks to this year’s ALPS Award Committee members Colleen Bell (University of the Fraser Valley), Paula Farrar (University of British Columbia), Janis McKenzie (Simon Fraser University), and Todd Rowlatt (Vancouver Community College).

Chair:  Katherine Miller, University of British Columbia
Chair-Elect:  Hope Power, Simon Fraser University
Continuing Education Coordinator (2nd year):  Nicole Aerts,  Royal Roads University
Continuing Education Coordinator (1st year of 2-year term):  Todd Rowlatt, Vancouver Community College
Recording Secretary:  Susan Paterson, University of British Columbia
SLAIS Student Representative: Tara Stieglitz, BCLA/CLA Student Chapter Association at UBC

Thanks to outgoing chair Ophelia Ma (University of Victoria), outgoing continuing education coordinator Celia Brinkerhoff (Douglas College), and outgoing SLAIS student representative Nicole Penz, for all of their hard work this past year!

Chair-elect (2 year term: 1st as chair-elect, 2nd as chair)

The chair-elect’s main duties are to assist the chair in planning the annual December meeting, to recruit members of the executive and to assist in any other events organized by ALPS. This year’s chair-elect, and next year’s chair, is Katherine Miller at UBC.

Continuing education coordinator (2 year term)

The continuing education responsibilities are shared between two executive members for a two year term. Each continuing education coordinator is elected on alternating years. Responsibilities include serving on the BCLA conference planning committee, liaising with the BCLA continuing education committee, coordinating events with the BCLA group at SLAIS, and organizing continuing education activities throughout the year. The continuing education coordinator who will work with you, in the 2nd year of her term, is Nicole Aerts at Royal Roads University.

Recording secretary (1 year term)

The recording secretary is responsible for taking minutes at executive and ALPS membership meetings, updating the ALPS website and Facebook page, and coordinating the content of the Yodeler, both in the BCLA Browser and on the Yodeler blog (http://alpsyodeler.wordpress.com).

The ALPS executive meets about 6 times a year, mostly via teleconference, and coordinate 2-3 events, and a range of other activities. If you would like to stand for one of these positions, please send Ophelia Ma (oma@uvic.ca) your name, institutional affiliation, contact information, and position of interest, by APRIL 6, 2009. If you know someone who would be a great candidate, please encourage them to put their name forward!

If more than one nomination is received for any of the positions, the ALPS membership will be given the opportunity to vote on their choice of candidate. Otherwise, the nominated individuals will be elected by acclamation at the ALPS Annual General Meeting on Saturday, April 18th.

Links to more information about each hotel, as well as their direct booking links are available at: http://www.bclibraryconference.ca/page/conference%20hotels.aspx

Friday, March 20th
5pm onwards
The Morrissey Pub
1227 Granville (at Davie)
RSVP appreciated – Anne O’Shea at acoshea@gmail.com

All are welcome!

News items and reports for the ALPS Yodeler blog/Browser column can be sent to Hope Power, ALPS Recording Secretary, at hpower@sfu.ca  (please include your name, job title, and contact info).  Share with your colleagues the news and events happening at your BC academic library or report on a topic of interest to academic librarians!

Established in 2002, the ALPS Award for Outstanding Service is presented to an academic public service librarian, or team of same, whose outstanding service has made a real difference to students, faculty, or colleagues.

This year, the award will be presented at the BCLA Conference awards reception, where conference attendees can honour BCLA award winners for their significant achievements. The reception will be held from 7pm to 11pm on Friday, April 17, 2009 at the Hilton Metrotown in Burnaby, BC. ALPS will also publicize the award winner in appropriate media and in a letter to the award winner’s institution.

The awards committee welcomes all nominations for this award. Nominations will be accepted until February 27, 2009, and should be e-mailed to Todd Rowlatt at trowlatt@vcc.ca . The nomination form is available here: http://www.bcla.bc.ca/ALPS%20award/ALPS_Nomination%20Form_2009.pdf

Nominees or their institutions are required to be BCLA members.

Please be sure to include the following:

name of nominator

name of nominee

project or reason for nomination

contact information for nominator in case we need to follow up

Criteria for nomination could include:

Demonstrated (through example and/or statistics) impact on students, colleagues or the library

Demonstrated collaboration with colleagues or other institutions

Worthy of inspiring similar efforts within the profession

The 2008/09 ALPS Awards Committee is:
Colleen Bell (University of the FraserValley)

Paula Farrar (University of British Columbia)

Janis McKenzie (Simon Fraser University)

Todd Rowlatt (Vancouver Community College)

 Submitted by: Todd Rowlatt, Vancouver Community College Library

The morning speaker program kicked off with a warm welcome from Kevin Paul, Dean of Student Support Services at Langara.  Colleen Bell, Information Literacy and Web Services Librarian at the University of the Fraser Valley, then provided an engaging and informative overview of the evolution of the academic library research skills tutorial from the print workbooks of the 1980s to the cutting-edge online modules of today.  Her talk included a demonstration of the interactive Online Library Assignment she created for her own library; this tutorial can be viewed via ALPS LINK (http://www.eln.bc.ca/irl) or at: http://journals.ufv.ca/library/first_year/

Next, Joyce Leung, Communications and Design Coordinator for the Developmental Disabilities Association and a recent graduate of the Interaction Design program at SFU, offered a valuable student perspective on the effectiveness of interactive learning online.  She also discussed her work with post-secondary librarians and educators around the province in developing a series of online research and writing tutorials for the BC Campus Project; these Academic Resource Toolbox (ART) tutorials can be viewed via ALPS LINK ((http://www.eln.bc.ca/irl) or at: http://www.eln.bc.ca/view.php?id=1603

After lunch, attendees were treated to tours of the beautiful, award-winning Langara College Library: http://www.langara.bc.ca/library/newbuilding/aboutbuilding.html   The afternoon business meeting included reports from ALPS executive members Ophelia Ma (UVic), Chairperson, Katherine Miller (UBC), Incoming Chair, Celia Brinkerhoff (Douglas), 2nd year Continuing Education Director, Nicole Aerts (Royal Roads), 1st year Continuing Education Director, Hope Power (SFU), Recording Secretary, and Nicole Penz (UBC SLAIS) Student Representative.  The ALPS LINK Laud a Librarian contest awards were then presented and the meeting concluded with a lively roundtable discussion of BC post-secondary library news.

Many thanks to BCLA for sponsoring and Langara College for hosting this meeting.  The presentations and part of the business meeting were videotaped and will be posted to the ALPS web server.  Keep your eye out for an announcement on the ALPS e-mail list this month!

Submitted by: Hope Power, ALPS Recording Secretary, Simon Fraser University Library