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Travelling Librarian Award

“Receiving the Sir Evelyn Wrench Travelling Fellowship to the United States was one of the defining situations in my personal and professional life” Joe Hendry, Travelling Librarian 1979

Travelling Librarian Award for encouraging US/UK contacts in the library world. 

Criteria  A selection panel will judge all applications objectively on how well they further the aims and purposes of the award, and the evidence provided in support of this. Each application will be judged on its individual merits. There is no set application length expected. It is up to each candidate to write as little or as much as they wish. However, what you present in support of your application should be: a) relevant and b) sufficient, to allow the selection panel to make an informed decision.  Typically, each year there are many excellent applications. However, should there be no suitable application, the panel reserves the right not to make an award for that year.

Award Details 

The Award will be about £3,000 to cover flights and some accommodation in the US. The successful candidate will be free to put together their own programme of visits (although help and advice will be available) and where possible will be encouraged to take up home hospitality with ESU Members. The successful candidate will be expected to cover further incidental costs. This study tour opportunity will be for two weeks in Autumn. 

A professional development opportunity 

On their return, the successful candidate will give some presentations and produce a short report. Usually a Travelling Librarian reception is held each year when the most recent winner has the opportunity to make a short presentation/talk on their study visit. Past recipients have found the study tour a rewarding personal and professional experience which has often helped advance their career. Reports by previous Travelling Librarian award winners can be found at the bottom of this page.

ESU/CILIP 

The ESU aims to strengthen international understanding through a variety of cultural and educational programmes and scholarships. As part of its international policy, CILIP aims to provide opportunities for members to enrich their professional lives by sharing experience and expertise with overseas colleagues. 

Applications for the 2010 scholarship are now closed. The application process for the 2011 award will open in late 2010.

Enquiries 

If you are interested and would like an informal discussion, then please contact either: 
Gill Hale, library@esu.org, tel: 020 7529 1587 
or
Jill Martin, Director Knowledge & Information Services, CILIP jill.martin@cilip.org.uk, tel: 020 7255 0642.  

Travelling Librarian Award 2010

This year’s Travelling Librarian Fellowship attracted a record number of candidates. Previous winners of the award have led innovation and change in their various library and information fields and the panel faced a difficult choice when selecting the 2010 Travelling Librarian, who will spend two weeks liaising with colleagues in the US on reciprocal programmes and in exchanging ideas. The Award was offered to Jo McCausland who has worked in a variety of roles related to public library services. The Panel were delighted that the ESU was able to fund a second deserving librarian this year and David Clover, Librarian at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London will also be travelling to the US in the autumn.

Jo McCausland is passionate about customers being at the heart of service provision.  Gloucestershire, Cambridgeshire, Swindon, Sheffield, York, Birmingham and now Manchester have benefited from Jo’s enthusiasm in taking up the challenges and opportunities for modernising services and developing relationships with those they serve.  Working for the excitingly named Department of Transformation at Manchester City Council, she is particularly interested in developing a workforce model to support a repositioned/revitalised public library service and will be exploring innovative library models in the US. 

 

David Clover admits to having no background in Caribbean Studies before taking up his post in 2003. He now organises annual conferences and chairs panels for others involved in the subject and is on the committee and has edited the newsletter of the Society for Caribbean Studies. David has established networks for UK colleagues and is keen to develop links with the US as well as developing strategies for collaborative projects, including the digitisation of resources.

 

Alumni

2009 Travelling Librarian

Please see News for Peter's interim report. His full report is downloadable below.

The 2009 Travelling Librarian award was made to Peter Lund, Academic Services Manager (Science) at Loughborough University. Peter is responsible for resources in Mathematical Sciences and Physics and for the Library’s support for research. He will travel to the US in September to look at how universities in Boston, West Virginia and Atlanta serve the needs of researchers.

The popular annual Travelling Librarian Reception, attended by alumni, members of the ESU and CILIP, The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, which jointly funds the award, was held in May. Last year’s award recipient, Sibylla Parkhill, from Her Majesty’s Prison, Bronzefield, which caters for women prisoners, gave a short talk on her experiences on visiting American prisons last year.

2008 Travelling Librarian

The 2008 travel grant was awarded to Sibylla Parkhill from HMP Bronzefield who travelled to the US in Autumn 2008. She gave her report to the committee, alumni and the new awardee, Peter Lund, at the Travelling Librarian Reception on 14 May 2009.

Sibylla's report was a fascinating insight not only into the system of libraries in the American prison system but also into the life of death row inmates, and the sociological, political and psycholoigcal issues behind their care and provisions. The ESU is proud to have given Sibylla the opportunity to produce such fascinating research. Read her report here.

2007 Travelling Librarian

The 2007 Travelling Librarian was Karen Poole, Assistant Librarian at The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. Her trip to the United States took place in October 2007. Her report is available for download below.

Karen observed; “over the two weeks of my trip I was privileged to meet many dedicated health librarians and information professionals and pharmacists and am extremely appreciative for all the time that they gave to making me welcome and my visits so informative, and for their kind hospitality”.

The main purpose of Karen’s trip was to identify key US resources in pharmacy information and education, discuss services offered to various pharmacy sectors and innovations in the provision of electronic materials. She also sought to explore training and education opportunities for pharmacists. Already proven as an enthusiastic ambassador for the award in the library and information profession, Karen’s research is proving to be valuable for co-operative trans-Atlantic ventures in the pharmaceutical industry.

2006 Travelling Librarian

The 2006 ESU/CILIP Travelling Librarian Award to the United States was awarded to Kim Sherwin, Deputy Head of Library Services at the Joint Services Command and Staff College in Watchfield, Swindon. Kim’s mission was ‘To forge mutually beneficial links between JSCSC and defence libraries in the United States’. Kim visited single service college libraries in Washington, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Alabama and Rhode Island as well as touring the United Nations in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.