SAGE/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:
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.