Eloisa Gomez Borah of the Rosenfeld Management Library is a recipient of the Royal Morales Community Achievement Award from the Pilipino Alumni Association (PAA) of UCLA, an affiliate of the UCLA Alumni Association. This award is established to recognize an alumnus, faculty member, staff member, or community friend who has made extraordinary contributions to the UCLA Pilipino community which exemplify the spirit and purpose of the University and of the Pilipino Alumni Association of UCLA. Eloisa will be honored on April 19th at the PAA Annual Scholarship Fundraising Dinner at the Renaissance Montura Hotel near LAX. Proceeds benefit the PAA of UCLA Scholarship Endowment, which recognizes outstanding student achievement through annual scholarship awards.

UCLA Library has a long (for the digital world) history of digital reference. Since Winter Quarter 2002, the UCLA Library has been conducting digital reference, and on November 5, 2006 expanded its service to include participation in the UC-wide digital reference collaborative "Ask a UC Librarian" using QuestionPoint. Over the years, the service has changed slightly as technical needs of our clientele have changed. Currently we provide 10 hours per week of library staff time towards the online reference chat service and our students receive 50 hours per week (Sunday-Thursday) of available digital reference through the "Ask a UC Librarian" service. After six years, what's on the horizon for digital reference?

1. Chat/IM - At a brown bag co-hosted by the Digital Reference Steering Committee and the Web Services Advisory Committee (WSAC) in October 2007, the IM chat services were discussed. Several library units on campus already have a MeeboMe widget --see What is meebome? (www.meebome.com/learnmore.html) or the Meebome wiki (wiki.meebo.com/doku.php?id=meebome&reason=0) for more details. WSAC sponsored a survey to gauge usefulness and understand the needs of individual units for releasing a broader pilot of the service. Results are still being evaluated. In the meantime, QuestionPoint has announced the release of Qwidget, an imbedded chat feature similar to MeeboMe. The Digital Reference Steering Committee will review this latest release and the survey data to help determine the best programs and policies for the UCLA Library.
    
   
2. Midwinter ALA Panel and New Features for QuestionPoint - QuestionPoint hosted a user group meeting at ALA midwinter. Qwidget, 24/7 reference best practices, and reference in social networking sites were discussed. Details about the discussion can be found online at: questionpoint.blogs.com/questionpoint_247_referen/2008/01/ala-midwinter-2.html. Panelist David Lankes of Syracuse University made his presentation available from his personal blog at: quartz.syr.edu/rdlankes/blog/?p=460.
    
   
3. Need Volunteers - You guessed it! What update would be complete without a request for new volunteers to help staff UCLA's digital reference collaborative? We've had a committed group of great staff. But every team needs a relief pitcher now and again. So step up to the challenge and contact Joseph Yue (josephyue@library.ucla.edu) about joining the team.

Need Funding for Information Literacy-Related Professional Development? We can help!

Is there an event that you'd like to attend that could enhance your information literacy skills and knowledge? Wondering about how to fund it? Support of up to $750 may be available for activities and training related to information literacy, including teaching, presentation skills, technologies used for instructional purposes, and information literacy program development. Examples include attending or presenting at pre-conferences, workshops, courses, webinars, and seminars.

Go to www2.library.ucla.edu/service/6360.cfm to learn more about how to get funding for Information Literacy-related professional development activities. Detailed information about how to apply for Information Literacy Program (ILP) funding can be found here. Briefly, the procedures outlined in this document are:

1. Send an email to lib_ILP@library.ucla.edu with the subject line "Request for ILP Funding" and the following information. (When it becomes available, librarians can submit a form on the ILP Web site.)

• Name
• Unit
• Description of event (including website or publicity announcement)
• Dates of attendance
• Brief rationale for attending (particularly the connection to information literacy)
• How librarian will share what he or she has learned or presented (e.g., brown bag, presentation, article for Staff Newsweb)
• Cost estimate

2. If the request is approved, complete the usual Request for Leave / Funding Support form and include the ILP funding information and the ILP Director's signature (along with other signatures as appropriate). Criteria for ILP Professional Development awards:

• Relevance to information literacy, ILP mission, and/or unit IL goals
• Librarian agrees to share learning

For questions, please email the ILP at lib_ILP@library.ucla.edu.

Appointments

Reclassifications

Open Positions

Previous issues

• Issues 846 and forward are available on the Staff Intranet.
• Printed copies of previous issues are available at the UCLA Library or by email request.
• Issues 837-854 are available in print under the title UCLA Library Newsweb at the UCLA Library or by email request.
• Issues 1-836 are available in print under the title Library Newsletter/UCLA at the UCLA Library.

• Library News for the Faculty (www2.library.ucla.edu/facultynews/3300.cfm)
• UCLA News (www.uclanews.ucla.edu)
• UCOP News (www.ucnewswire.org/ucnw.cfm)

The UCLA Library Staff Newsweb is published every other Monday by Library Human Resources. News items should be sent to Sheila Knapp, Library Newsweb, LHR. Please submit via email to Sheila at sknapp@library.ucla.edu. The deadline for the next issue (April 14) is Friday, April 4 at 3 p.m.

Other Publication dates and deadlines (www.library.ucla.edu/publications/libnews/deadline.htm)