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Library School Alumni Association

The mission of the Library School Alumni Association (LSAA) is to support the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS), to encourage active participation of alumni in the programs of GSLIS and LSAA, to encourage students to become active, lifelong supporters of GSLIS and LSAA, and to be a partner with the University of Illinois Alumni Association in supporting alumni in their professional lives.

For more information, e-mail -lis-dev, at uiuc.edu-.

Join LSAA

As an LIS alumni, you are automatically a member of LSAA which entitles you to several valuable benefits and services. To find out more about these and other membership upgrades, please go to the University of Illinois Alumni Association.

Greetings from LSAA President Julie Derden

On behalf of your Library Science Alumni Association (LSAA), greetings to all of our GSLIS alumni, near and far! LSAA has made great strides to identify and prioritize projects over the past year, and we have hopes that the momentum will continue. The key ingredient in that momentum is--in a word--YOU!

There are many ways to become involved with GSLIS and LSAA. Here are just a few of the ways you can make a difference to current and future students:

Connect with current students through our LSAA Student-Alum Connection, offered through GSLIS's Moodle site. This is "the happenin' place" for students enrolled at GSLIS, and as alumni, you are eligible to join in the conversation through our dedicated bulletin board. If you're a recent graduate, your username and password remain the same as when you were actively enrolled at GSLIS. If you want to have access to the conversations that occur on this bulletin board and don't have a username and password, please contact the GSLIS Help Desk at -help, at support.lis.uiuc.edu- or call (217) 244-4903. Once you have access, you can easily subscribe to the LSAA Student-Alum Connection Bulletin Board so that you can be alerted when there is a posting.

One of the initiatives that your LSAA made a priority last year was facilitating Alternative Spring Break. This program connects current GSLIS students who want to experience a week at a museum, public library, academic library, archives, or any myriad of other LIS-related locations with GSLIS alumni in that student's field of interest. You can easily volunteer by hosting a student or helping to financially support a student in this endeavor.

Your LSAA's major fundraising project for this year (and through 2011) will be promoting the LSAA Endowed Professorship. We are excited about the decision by the University of Illinois Alumni Association (UIAA) to make ALL graduates--past and future--automatic members of UIAA. What this means to you is that no matter when you graduated from GSLIS, you are automatically a member of LSAA by virtue of UIAA's new membership guidelines. LSAA is proud of our status as the oldest campus alumni "constituent" association! We hope that this will encourage you to financially support the initiatives of GSLIS and LSAA. There are many ways to do that, and we feel confident that many of these will meet your personal philanthropic goals. Your LSAA Board hopes that one of those goals will be to contribute to the LSAA Endowed Professorship. In short, we aspire to raise the $500,000 needed for the endowment by June 2011. The Board voted to contribute $100,000 to this worthwhile goal. The remainder will be funded from your collective donations. Ambitious? Yes. Attainable? Absolutely!

If I can answer any questions you might have about the direction or initiatives of your LSAA, please do not hesitate to contact me via email at -derden, at illinoisalumni.org-. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and seeing you as a participant in the many opportunities available!

Sincerely,

Julie Derden, GSLIS (MS ’06)
LSAA President 2008-2009