[Asis-l] Join the 2005 UNC SILS Mentoring Program

[Andy Ingham]

The School of Information and Library Science Alumni Association
(SILSAA), North Carolina Special Libraries Association (NCSLA), Beta Phi
Mu, and the UNC-Chapel Hill Chapter of ASIS&T invite you to become part
of the exciting annual mentoring program at UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of
Information and Library (SILS).

Here in the Triangle, we will match librarians and information
specialists with eager SILS students for the 2005 event.  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, school, 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/alumni/mentoring.html by February 28 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 March 18 so that
you can begin making your plans.

We would like to expand the mentoring program 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 is 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.

Mary Horton, President SILS Alumni Association