SAGE Publications/ALCTS Award Granted to Three Deserving Support Staff

["Johns, Valerie" <Valerie.Johns@sagepub.com>]

CONTACT:
Elena Nikitina
Director of Journals Marketing
SAGE Publications
Tel: 805-410-7204
Fax: 805-499-0871
Email: elena.nikitina@sagepub.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SAGE Publications/ALCTS Award Granted to Three Deserving Support Staff

Thousand Oaks, California, and London, United Kingdom (February 7, 2005) -
SAGE Publications, in partnership with ALA's Association for Library
Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS), are pleased to announce the
winners of the new 2005 ALCTS Support Staff Grant. This grant is supplying
airfare, hotel and conference registration for the following three library
support staff personnel to attend the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago
this June:

*	Linda Christine Ericson
Library Assistant, Consortium Library, University of Alaska, Anchorage,
Alaska

*         Heidi M. Jensen
Library Assistant, Pioneer Library System, Canandaigua, New York

*	Lydia C. Williams
Archives and Records Manager, Greenwood Library, Longwood University,
Farmville, Virginia

The grant was offered to full time paraprofessionals with at least three
years experience in technical services who'd never attended ALA. The award
recipients together have over three decades of experience! And these
well-deserving individuals aren't "just" support staff. They are active
library employees, involved in their state library and paraprofessional
organizations, handling such complex tasks as organizing workshops,
editing and writing for journals, chairing committees, and furthering
their education. Certainly, energetic and committed staff like these will
return from the ALA Conference with much information to share.

"We're pleased to help these deserving library staff members to attend the
ALA Conference,' said Blaise Simqu, SAGE President and CEO, commenting on
the ALCTS Support Staff Grant. "We know that support staff are often the
'unsung heroes' in today's libraries, and the realities of library budgets
seldom provide the finances for them to attend conferences."

"The ALCTS Support Staff Grant award process confirmed to us that we
have impressive support staff working in our libraries," said Pamela
Bluh, Chair of the 2005 ALCTS Support Staff Grant Award Jury. "The
response to the grant far exceeded our expectations and we were very
impressed, not only with the large number of entries, but also with all
the remarkable candidates."

About SAGE Publications:

SAGE Publications is a leading international publisher of journals,
books, and electronic media for academic, educational, and professional
markets. Since 1965, SAGE has helped inform and educate a global
community of scholars, practitioners, researchers, and students. SAGE
Publications, a privately owned corporation, has principal offices in
Thousand Oaks, California, London, United Kingdom, and in New Delhi,
India.

About ALCTS:

The Association for Library Collections & Technical Services is
responsible for the following activities: acquisition, identification,
cataloging, classification, and preservation of library materials; the
development and coordination of the country's library resources; and those
areas of selection and evaluation involved in the acquisition of library
materials and pertinent to the development of library resources.

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