Boozhoo! I use this Ojibwe greeting for hello to welcome you to my blog!
Please visit this site to learn about how my students and I are living my campaign phrase of Celebrating Community, Collaboration and Culture.

Let me use this first message to introduce students in our community of learning here in the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin. You can find out about more programs in the iSchool through the Web site at http://www.ischool.utexas.edu.

Our community in the School of Information includes several PhD students focusing on documenting underrepresented voices in cultural heritage sites, community informatics, and public access computing in public libraries. You'll hear more about the outstanding work of Tony Cherian, Arro Smith, and Pedro Reynoso. And, you can meet them all at the ALISE conference this January.

MSIS (Master's of Science in Information Studies) students in our circle are interested in public services in public and academic libraries, youth services, and tribal librarianship. Typically, about half of my advisees are seeking positions in public libraries with the other half interested in careers in academic librarianship. I also advise students with diverse interests--including a few students interested in archives, organization of information/cataloging and classification, school librarianship, and special librarianship.

Like other faculty here in the iSchool I teach the standard course load of four graduate classes a year. My current rotation includes teaching "Public Libraries" each fall, "Library Instruction and Information Literacy" each spring and two advanced reference classes--one in the social sciences and the other in the humanities. I hold a strong belief in service-learning and students are involved in citizen engagement through most of my classes. Today, three of my students in our Honoring Generations scholarship program drove to the Alabama-Coushatta reservation in east Texas to help the tribal librarian evaluate her collection. There, our iSchool students will also meet with tribal youth in their after-school program. Let's talk more about service-learning in another posting!

As in many locations around the country, this month Austin is hosting events highlighting American Indian culture. Austin is home to the largest one-day, free powwow in the US on Saturday, 5 November. Powwows provide an opportunity for pan-Indigenous expression, a time to reflect on the nature of service, to share stories, enjoy Native foods, visit vendors, and reaffirm cultural identity.

Watch for my new campaign Web site. You'll soon find a link to the Campaign Preview Site linked from my regular Web site at http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~loriene.

Please feel free to send me a note!

Megwitch (thank you),

Loriene Roy

Reading Circle: What's the last book I purchased? Last Sunday I attended the Texas Book Festival, attending a program and helping staff the iSchool booth. I purchased Ted Allen's cookbook, "The Food You Want to Eat: 100 Smart, Simple Recipes." Ted signed the book! As usual, I'm reading about five other books, including listening to an audio book. This week the audio book is "The Adventures of Guy Noir," featured stories about Garrison Keillor's radio program character.