LISSA Wins ALA Student Chapter of the Year Award for 2008

2008 ALA NMRT Student Chapter of The Year Award winner, runner-up announced

The New Members Round Table (NMRT) and the American Library Association (ALA) Membership Committee have named the University of South Carolina Library and Information Science Student Association (LISSA)  the winner of the 2008 ALA Student Chapter of the Year Award.

The runner-up of this year’s award is the ALA Student Chapter at UCLA.

The Student Chapter of the Year Award recognizes a chapter’s outstanding contributions to ALA, its school and the profession. The purpose of the award is to increase student involvement in ALA through student chapters and  recognize its leaders. Official ALA student chapters are organizations formed by students at schools offering accredited library and information studies programs. The winning student chapter receives a $1,000 travel grant to help with the cost of conference attendance.

This year’s Student Chapter of the Year Award Committee members commended the University of South Carolina’s LISSA chapter for their work in each of the seven categories related to the award. The chapter made excellent use of Web 2.0 technology, developed original and successful fundraising activities and offered an excellent variety of programs and services for its students, including assistance and marketing for a Second Life Mentoring event, initiating two colloquial series and hosting an annual symposium. Their commitment to community service was also laudable and included working with several children’s literacy events, conducting bibliographic research to help the Lubuto Library Project in their collection development efforts and helping clean out and organize the library of a local community center.

Dr. Feili Tu, assistant professor in the University of South Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science, said: “LISSA has been fortunate to have dynamic, hard-working and innovative leaders (i.e., LISSA officers) with exceptional management and organizational skills. LISSA officers have a can-do attitude. Their work is dedicated to helping SLIS students believe in such an attitude and use it as an inspiration for letting their creativity shine…LISSA has also successfully promoted the partnership of the student association with the SLIS administration, which has helped the administration and faculty more clearly understand students’ expectations and needs, make strategic plans and establish goals for future development. LISSA exemplifies the mission of the ALA in promoting the highest quality library and information services and public access to information.”