FOR RELEASE: IMMEDIATE       DATE: 3/1/04

CONTACT: EMILY SILVERMAN, (413) 545-0995

UMASS AMHERST LIBRARY HOSTS
ALANA LIBRARY CAREER RECEPTION

     Amherst, Mass. – The ALANA Library Career Reception will be Thursday, March 4, 2004, 5:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. on the Main Floor of the W.E.B. Du Bois Library at UMass Amherst.

     The evening will enable students and others interested in a career change to talk with librarians, library school students, and representatives from library graduate programs about the possibilities and opportunities as a librarian. Free international food will be served. Exhibits and giveaways will supplement the program.

     This event is targeted to ALANA groups because of the need to increase the numbers of people of color who become information professionals and serve communities in Massachusetts and throughout the U.S.

     Attendees include Michael Havener, dean of the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Library and Information Studies, Terry Plum of the Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science, and current library school students and librarians from throughout New England.

     Sherelle Harris, a department head children’s librarian in the Norwalk Public Library system for the past five years, will be the keynote speaker. Harris earned a B.A. from Columbia College in journalism and an M.L.S. in Library and Information Science from Pratt Institute. A poet and playwright (who writes under a pseudonym), she has also written a screenplay and a teleplay and has recently completed a three-year fellowship with the Connecticut Commission on the Arts. She has worked as a children’s librarian since 1993.

     The UMass Amherst Library has been noted in the library literature for its efforts in recruitment in recent years. It is part of a national effort to recruit librarians of color, which is led by various groups including the Associations of Librarians of Color and the Diversity Office of the American Library Association.

     The sponsors of the event are the UMass Amherst Libraries, the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Library and Information Studies, and the Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science. For more information, contact Anne L. Moore at (413) 545-6888 or amoore@library.umass.edu.