Carroll Preston Baber Research Grant recipient named

Contact: Denise M. Davis


ALA Office for Research & Statistics


312-280-4273


dmdavis@ala.org

NEWS


For Immediate Release


March 9, 2010

CHICAGO – Betsy Simpson, is the winner of the 2010 American Library Association (ALA) Carroll Preston Baber Research Grant for the project entitled “Shifting Patterns: Examining the Impact of Hiring Non-MLS Librarians.”

The $3,000 grant supports innovative research that could lead to an improvement in library services to any specific group of people. The award was donated by Eric R. Baber, Newton, Kan., in honor of his father, who was library director at Kansas State Teachers College (now Emporia State University) for 27 years. Baber died in January 1991, leaving ALA an endowment to support the award in perpetuity.

The Carroll Preston Baber Award Jury received a number of applications, all of them very interesting. The focus of the award, however, is on a pressing national issue that is of importance to library service. The quality of service provided by librarians is key to the quality of service given in American libraries. “Simpson has identified a question relating to the dynamics involved in hiring and initiating
non-MLS librarians into academic and public librarianship and the development of their theoretical and practical skills in librarianship,” said jury chair Mary Pagliero Popp. “We anticipate that the results of her study will lead to an important discussion about the
skills and learning needs of academic and public librarians in the twenty-first century.”

Guidelines for the Baber Grant, including a list of previous winners, may be found by going to:
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/ors/orsawards/baberresearchgrant/babercarroll.cfm

#