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• Call for Applicants: 2009 IMLS LPL

Call for Applicants: 2009 IMLS LPL

• Call for Applicants: 2009 IMLS LPL

Institute of Museum and Library Services Leaders for Pacific Libraries
Now Accepting Applications for 2009
Deadline: February 13, 2009

If you are a resident of the U.S.-affiliated Pacific and are currently working in a library, archive, or museum, you may be eligible for a training opportunity funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and administered by Pacific Resources for Education and Learning (PREL).

The training, “Building Digital Library Collections with Greenstone,” will be held May 4–22, 2009, on the national campus of the College of Micronesia (COM) in Palikir, Pohnpei State, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). One week will be devoted to training on the software, and two additional weeks will be spent building a Pacific Digital Library (PDL). The PDL will be an ongoing collaborative project of the participating institutions from throughout the U.S.-affiliated Pacific.

In this hands-on workshop, participants will learn how to build a variety of different kinds of digital library collections with the Greenstone digital library software, a comprehensive, open-source system for constructing, presenting, and maintaining information collections. Collections will be built from HTML documents; Word, PDF, and PostScript documents; images in various formats; MP3 and MIDI audio; MARC records; and more. For each collection, various different full-text search indexes and metadata-based browsers will be created. We will discuss support for the Dublin Core, Open Archives Initiative (OAI), and Metadata Encoding & Transmission Standard (METS).

Attendees will receive this open source software on a CD-ROM that we will provide, along with various sample files, so that they can take it home and install it on their own machines.

The training will be led by Ian H. Witten. Dr. Witten is Professor of Computer Science at the University of Waikato in New Zealand, where he directs the New Zealand Digital Library research project. He has published widely, including several books, the most recent among them being How to Build a Digital Library (2003), Data Mining (2005), and Web Dragons (2007), all from Morgan Kaufmann. Dr. Witten received an MA in mathematics from Cambridge University, England; an MS in computer science from the University of Calgary, Canada; and a PhD in electrical engineering from Essex University, England. He is a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Royal Society of New Zealand. He received the 2004 International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Namur Award, a biennial honor accorded for “outstanding contribution with international impact to the awareness of social implications of information and communication technology,” and the 2005 ACM Special Interest Group on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (SIGKDD) Service Award for “an outstanding contribution to the data mining field.” In 2006, the Royal Society of New Zealand also honored Dr. Witten with a Hector Medal for “an outstanding contribution to the advancement of the mathematical and information sciences.”

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

Carefully review the following information to determine your eligibility before completing the application process. Please contact Jane Barnwell at barnwellj@prel.org if you have any questions about your eligibility or program requirements. To apply for the 2009 LPL training opportunity, you must:
• Be a resident of American Samoa, the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, or the Republic of Palau.
• Be currently employed in a library, archive, or museum in your home state or country, and have responsibility working with and developing Pacific collections.
• Have the support and commitment of your immediate supervisor and overall institutional director or administrator to meet all program requirements. This project requires your institution to make a commitment to contributing to the further development of the Pacific Digital Library project beyond the time period of the training.
• Have excellent English language skills.
• Have strong computer skills.
• Be a member of PIALA and/or regional or local professional associations (e.g., Chuuk Library Association; Federated States of Micronesia Association of Libraries, Archives, and Museums; Guam Library Association; Marshall Islands Library Association; Palau Association of Libraries; Pacific Regional Branch of the International Council on Archives [PARBICA]; Pacific Islands Museums Association [PIMA]).
• Be willing to share information, conduct workshops, and mentor colleagues in your home entity.

TO APPLY

Submit your application materials in a complete package by email, fax, or postal service to Jane Barnwell, IMLS LPL Project Director, no later than February 13, 2009.

Email: barnwellj@prel.org
Fax: (808) 441-1385

Pacific Resources for Education and Learning
Attention: Jane Barnwell, IMLS LPL Project Director
900 Fort Street Mall, Suite 1300
Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96813-3718

You may also hand deliver your completed application to your local PREL service center.

The application package must include the following components:

1. Completed Application Form
You may download the application form by clicking here. In addition, you may contact Jane Barnwell, IMLS LPL Project Director, at barnwellj@prel.org, for the application form. The form is also available from PREL service centers.

2. Personal Statement
Write a short essay addressing all of the following topics:
• Work experience, including dates and institution names, and your position and responsibilities
• Description of your participation in your local and/or regional library association(s)
• Explanation of what you hope to gain from this training opportunity
• Description of your institution's unique Pacific collections, and explanation of which ones you recommend including in the Pacific Digital Library project
• Description of specific strategies for how you will share information, conduct workshops, and mentor colleagues in your home entity
You may include additional information to show why you are a good candidate for this opportunity. This statement is a very important component of your application package.

3. Two (2) Letters of Recommendation
Obtain two letters of recommendation. One must be from your institution's director or chief administrator where you are currently employed. This letter must state the following in exact wording:
“The [name of library/archive/museum] supports [attendee] to attend the LPL training on digital library development, to complete assignments to gather electronic and/or print data needed for the training, to complete all required training activities, and to train other library, archives, and museum personnel in [your entity] on the Greenstone digital library software.”
The second letter should be from your immediate supervisor, who can provide information on your professional accomplishments and potential success in this training.

AWARD NOTIFICATION

Applicants will receive notification by April 3, 2009. Direct round-trip airfare to Pohnpei, housing, and a modest per diem will be included as part of this award.

PREL honors your commitment to improve library, archive, and museum services in our region!

Contact PREL