		Interface
		Surviving and Thriving on Your Own

Ivan Murillo Accepts Century Scholarship Interface Volume 27 Number 3, Fall, 2005. Interface is the quarterly newsletter published by the ASCLA division of the ALA. Ivan Murillo, the 2005 Century Scholarship Award winner makes his comments of acceptance to ASCLA.

Volume 27, Number 3, Fall 2005

Ivan Murillo Accepts 2005 Century Scholarship

(Editor’s remarks: Ivan V. Murillo is the 2005 Century Scholarship winner [and the sixth Century Scholar]. Murillo is attending San Jose State University, College of Library and Informational Sciences, and could not attend the ASCLA Awards Ceremony at Conference. His remarks follow.)

Thank you Simon Healey, the Century Scholarship Committee; and ASCLA.

I must continually remind myself that I have a neurological condition that is not obvious to the majority of people whom I meet. It's easy to think of myself as the one that has driven “code-3” vehicles or as the one who fought wild land fires. It is more difficult to admit that it is now better for all of those around me if I were to use public transportation to get around town, or even to consider that getting around town might be a challenge.

I am one of millions of people in the United States with epilepsy; sometimes I have episodes where I’ll be “away” for varying lengths of time.

Yet, I’ve had the great fortune of doing so many enjoyable things to date, and being a librarian is something that I have wanted to be for almost as long as I can remember. I’m grateful to attend an institution like San José State University, and I’m especially thankful to be selected as this year’s recipient of the Association of Specialized and Cooperative Library Agencies’ Century Scholarship.

My interest in libraries emanates from my history studies and my bookselling background. In the same way that I don’t accept that being a Latino gives me automatic insight into the “Latino” psyche, I don’t believe that because I take medication or because I regularly visit a neurologist, I am an expert on epilepsy. I choose to study Latino issues, and that’s one way for me to maintain my knowledge of that subject. Similarly, with my experiences and with the opportunities that receiving this scholarship will afford, I will work to develop my knowledge and to share my findings of what I consider to be unobserved disabilities.

Contact: Chris Cieslak
with questions concerning the ASCLA Web site. Last Revised: Oct 07, 2008

Interface(ISSN 0270-6717), the official publication of the Association of Specialized and Cooperative Library Agencies, a division of the American Library Association, 50 East Huron Street, Chicago, IL 60611, is published quarterly - Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter.