[Asis-l] UNC-Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science Mentoring Celebration

[Andy Ingham]

As someone who has participated as a mentor the past two years, I can
honestly say that the experience offered below is a valuable one for
both mentor and student.  I encourage your participation, regardless of
whether or not you are a UNC SILS alum or have any other UNC
affiliation; it's a great way to invest in the future of our
professions.  Thanks in advance!

Andy Ingham
UNC MSLS '97
Assistant Head, Library Systems, Academic Affairs Library, UNC-CH
Vice President / President-Elect, SILSAA

------------------------

The School of Information and Library Science Alumni Association
(SILSAA), Librarians’ Association at UNC-Chapel Hill (LAUNC-CH), North
Carolina Special Libraries Association (NCSLA), and Beta Phi Mu invite
you to become part of their exciting annual Mentoring Celebration:
Building Our Future. This celebration will be held during the week of
March 17-21.

Here in the Triangle, we will match librarians and information
specialists with eager SILS students for the 2003 Mentoring Celebration
on a day of your choice during that week.  We encourage participating
mentors to make creative arrangements that best fit your schedules and
interests. In the past, many people have spent the morning/afternoon/day
in their workplaces with their students, perhaps taking them out to
lunch or planning other activities. Your plans could include an in-depth
tour of your work environment and a chance for the student to spend some
time with a librarian or information specialist on site. We hope to have
participants from public, academic, medical, law, government, and
special libraries, as well as the gamut of information science
specialties.  To be a mentor you do not have to be a senior librarian or
information specialist with years of experience—in fact, your
perspective as someone new to the field may be especially interesting to
students.

If you are interested in hosting a SILS student during the Mentoring
Celebration, please go to the SILS web page at
http://ils.unc.edu/ils/silslab/html/mentoring.html by February 18 and
complete the requested information. We cannot promise to make an exact
match, but please indicate on the form your areas of interest or
specialization to assist the sponsoring organizations in pairing mentors
with students. We will send you your student’s name and e-mail address
by February 28 so that you can begin making your plans.

As part of your mentoring day, LAUNC-CH would like to invite you and
your student to their 2003 conference, “New Expectations for 21st
Century Libraries” on March 17 at The Friday Center in Chapel Hill. This
could provide an excellent activity for you to do together—attend
sessions, have lunch, and meet other professionals.  For more
information about the conference, visit the LAUNC-CH website at
http://www.lib.unc.edu/launcch/

The goal for the 2003 Mentoring Celebration is to expand the celebration
so that alumni from all across the country can participate. We urge
those of you who do not live in the Triangle area to identify someone in
your community who may be interested in librarianship or information
science.  We especially hope that you will take your prospective
librarian/information specialist to lunch and talk with him or her about
our program here at UNC-Chapel Hill – after all, SILS has again been
ranked as Number One in the nation among schools of library and
information science by the U.S. News and World Report! Please let us
know if you plan to mentor a prospective student, and the office will
send information about SILS for you to share with your student. By
mirroring what we are doing here in Chapel Hill, you can be not only an
active participant in our alumni activities but also a valuable advocate
for SILS. Alumni from other areas are welcome to call or e-mail me to
talk about how you might participate in our program.

Remember.... You are the "Mentor" in this Mentoring Celebration—please
join us to build our professional future and to share your perspective
about the profession with current and future students.

Selden Lamoureux, President
SILS Alumni Association