We Host an International Visitor, Advise Students, Prepare for TLA, and are Involved in End-of-Semester Activities

The semester is quickly coming to a close. Last week we hosted a visit by Alana Garwood-Houng, Librarian, Library of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Studies (AIATSIS). She presented an iForum on "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Protocols" and we escorted her to the Alabama-Coushatta Reservation where she met with tribal officials, library staff, and children attending Youth Center events. Alana is President of the ATSILIRN, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Library and Information Resource Network.

This week students are registering for their summer and fall courses. Each student meets with his or her faculty advisor; I met with twenty advisees in half-hour or more advising sessions and will be supervising five student Capstone and/or individual studies projects over the summer.

Students graduating in May are also giving presentations on their Capstones. This semester, students have completed Capstones at institutions/organizations including Austin Public Library, Tarlton Law Library, Lower Colorado River Authority, U.S. Fish & Widlife Service, Austin Rowing Club, IBM Austin CenterUnie for Advanced Studies, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Library, and the Blanton Museum of Art. Our first Honoring Generations student graduates and is completing her Capstone at the Center for American History conducting processing and archival arrangement of family papers. Other Honoring Generations students are preparing for their summer work in Alaska, Washington, D.C., and Guatemala.

Many of us are involved in next week's Texas Library Association. PhD student Arro Smith, Jo Anne Newyear-Ramirez (University Libraries Asst. Head of Research Services & Nursing Bibliographer) and I are presenting a four-hour pre-conference on collection analysis. I'm co-presenting on two panels organized by TLA's Public Relations Committee and will soon complete my term of service on this Committee. PhD student Mariela Gunn and I will co-present a contributed paper on the Rural Bridge to TexShare project and students and I will prepare and staff two booths at the Diversity Fair, one booth on the Joint Conference of Librarians of Color and a second booth on "If I Can Read, I Can Do Anything," our national reading club for Native children. I'm also serving as judge for the book cart drill team competition.

Students in the Information Resources in the Humanities class are completing their second pathfinders for tribal colleges and the Art and Architecture Library at Virginia Tech. Students in the Library Instruction and Information Literacy class are in the midst of preparing new content for the Bridge to TexShare for Rural and Small Libraries (http://www.texshare.edu) website. We are also developing materials for a half-day CE workshop we will be giving in mid-May at a meeting for librarians from five Historically Black Colleges and Universities.