ALA Cognotes San Diego Midwinter Highlights Issue - (Page 4)

Page 4 • San Diego Midwinter Highlights Cognotes BCALA Announces 2011 Literary Awards Winners he Black Caucus of the American Library Association, Inc. announced the winners of the 2011 BCALA Literary Awards during the Midwinter Meeting of the American Library Association. The awards recognize excellence in adult fiction and nonfiction by African American authors published in 2010. The winner in the Fiction category is Glorious by Bernice L. McFadden (Akashic Books). The winner in the Non-fiction category is The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore (Random House). Honor Books for Non-fiction were also T ALA Midwinter Meeting attendees observe the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday with “An American Celebration – Libraries Lead the Way” sunrise service. Everybody Can Be Great By Stacy L. Voeller Minnesota State University Moorhead his year’s theme for the 2011 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Sunrise Celebration on January 10 was “Everybody Can Be Great.” This theme was chosen because Dr. King encouraged his congregation to seek greatness, but to do so through service and love. Throughout the morning’s moving celebration, ALA members quoted Dr. King’s Drum Major Instinct sermon which he delivered on February 4, 1968. The featured speaker for the celebration was Dr. Michael K. Honey. Honey has authored several books about Dr. King including Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights: Organizing Memphis Workers, Black Workers Remember: An Oral history of Segregation, Unionism, and the Freedom Struggle, and Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King’s Last Campaign. His newest book, All Labor Has Dignity, contains two types of documents – “speeches transcribed from tape recordings by people associated with King during his life-time or shortly after his death, and typed or partially handwritten text of a speech as King planned to deliver it.” The book also includes a CD of two rare speeches delivered by Dr. King. “There is so much to learn from King,” said Honey. “I grew up as a follower of King, in an all-white farming area, and I was somebody who read a T lot and went to the library a lot. Anyone growing up in this period had to be affected by what was happening.” “I’ve always kept King’s teaching in my mind, simple thoughts that I can remember like an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leaves everyone sightless and blind, and that it’s important to help somebody who is in need of help even if it means putting yourself in danger,” Honey continued. Honey said that he really started studying the roots of racism, poverty, and injustice. He went back and traced the roots and became very interested in the labor movement. In collecting the speeches for his latest book, he found the title of King’s speech to the sanitation workers in Memphis. “The sanitation workers’ strike for union rights threatened the racial pattern of white supremacy as well as a low-wage system based on cheap black labor. It was a classic civil rights strike, bringing together many of the issues King sought to address in the poor People’s Campaign. King’s ability to merge moral and religious philosophy with labor and human rights issues illustrated once again why people constantly called on him to join their struggles.” King said, “Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve.... You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.” selected: In the Place of Justice: A Story of Punishment and Deliver2011 ance by Wilbert Rideau (Alfred A. Knopf) and John Oliver Killens: A Life of Black Literary Activism by Keith Gilyard (University of Georgia Press). The recipient of the First Novelist Award is Dolen Perkins-Valdez for Wench (HarperCollins). For excellence in scholarship, the BCALA Literary Awards Committee presents the Outstanding Contribution to Publishing Citation to Unfinished Blues: Memories of a New Orleans Music Man by Harold Battiste Jr. and Karen Celestan (The Historic New Orleans Collection). Midwin Share, Talk and Write: Free Online Collaboration Tools By William Risser he Library Instruction Round Table (LIRT) Web Advisory Committee held a demonstration of free online products designed to enhance communication, management and organization in the workplace on January 9. Billie Peterson-Lugo, Assistant Director of the Electronic Library at Baylor University discussed the benefits of a free online project management tool called BaseCamp. BaseCamp is a collaborative tools that provides communications services like message boards and a real time chat program called ‘camp fire’, document management such as file sharing and project details like to-do lists and apps for android, blackberry etc. A 30-day free trial is offered on all accounts, but is limited to one project and does not offer file sharing. The basic plan is $24 a month and allows 15 projects, 5 GB storage and unlimited users, while the max program is $149 a month and has 75 GB of storage and allows for unlimited projects. Carrie Forbes, the Instruction and Reference Librarian at the University of Denver discussed and demonstrated free online conferencing and meeting programs, which virtually allows for multiple users in different locations to meet face-to-face. A primary drawback of these programs, which are cloud based, can be security. Additionally, it T Save the Date: International Relations Roundtable Pre-Conference Plan to attend the International Relations Roundtable (IRRT) PreConference to be held Friday June 24, 2011 at the ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans. The theme is “Outreach through New Partnership: Strategies and Successes.” The half-day program will feature presentations with practical information useful to a cross-section of international and domestic libraries.The pre-conference is from 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. with lunch immediately following. Join us for this opportunity to learn about creative, practical solutions to outreach services and collaborations. We look forward to seeing you! For more information about IRRT, please visit www.ala.org/irrt. is good to know that free software companies can be sold or go out of business without notice so be careful about what type of information is being kept there. Robin Kear the Reference/Instruction Librarian at the University of Pittsburgh talked about the benefits of free social document creation sites like GoogleDocs, which is a web-based program with file storage a single pint of entry. She uses the free program for a number of things including peer review, facilitate collaboration and presentations, but it also can also do word processing, spreadsheets, chat and forms. “GoogleDoc forms are so easy to get their information from because they are right there,” said Kear, “I use it for ALA committee work, evaluating and reviewing applications and group projects at work”. ALA Connect is another free online program, which supports live documents, chat and other features. It can be used internally or externally and streamlines collaborative work. Additionally, it’s paperless and offers an archives feature up to storage capacity. While there are pros and cons to the different programs and applications Peterson-Lugo finds the free options are just easier. “Even if your institution has a paid subscription to a service, it can be easier to use the free software because you can do it yourself with out having to set anything up or call someone to help you,” she said. Cognotes Looking for Reporters Cognotes is looking for dedicated individuals who will be attending Annual Conference to join the Cognotes reporting staff. If interested please send your name and a writing sample to Managing Editor, Deb Nerud Vernon at dvernon@esu6.org. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR THE ANNUAL CONFERENCE IN NEW ORLEANS http://www.alaannual.org/content/travel-housing-and-registration-information http://www.ala.org/irrt

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ALA Cognotes San Diego Midwinter Highlights Issue