Vol. 28 No.7, Summer 2001

2001 Karen Sternheim Memorial Scholarship Recipient Announced

The winner of the chapter’s sixth annual Karen Sternheim Memorial Scholarship, chosen from 15 applicants, is Aura Lippincott, a master’s degree candidate from the UCLA Graduate School of Information Studies. This year’s award of $3,000 was presented to Aura at the chapter’s annual business meeting on May 17 in Pasadena, CA. The scholarship was established by the Southern California Chapter of the Special Libraries Association to provide assistance to a student enrolled in a graduate master’s degree program in library and information studies that intends to pursue a career in special librarianship.

Aura earned a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from George Washington University in 1992 and expects to graduate from UCLA’s Information Studies program in September of this year. Currently an assistant to the librarians at UCLA’s Rosenfeld Management Library, Aura’s responsibilities include development and maintenance of library Web pages, including course support materials and case studies. She also develops user guides for business databases and presents orientation workshops in software application to MBA students. Aura is a member of UCLA’s student chapter of the Special Libraries Association and served as Vice President from 2000 2001. She is also a member of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. Although there were many impressive applicants for this year’s award, Aura’s application was most representative of what the Scholarship Committee believes is needed in future leaders: scholastic achievement; strong recommendations from academics and practitioners; and focused, goal oriented plans. In addition, her essay thoughtfully conveyed her interest in and commitment to special librarianship.

The Sternheim Memorial Scholarship honors Southern California Chapter member Karen Sternheim, who was employed by the UCLA Management Library from 1980-1993. Karen was very involved in the Special Libraries Association and was an active member of the Scholarship Committee and UCLA’s student group. She also participated in the UCLA Library mentoring project and supervised information science graduate interns employed by UCLA’s Management Library.

Past recipients of the scholarship are as follows:

1996 Sharlene Matshuara, Simmons College
1997 Kim Laru, San Jose State University
1998 Cathy Spitzer, University of Texas
1999 Heather Lynne Hepler, University of North Texas
2000 Laurie C. Blasingame, San Jose State University
2000 Natasha Bergson-Michelson, San Jose State University

For more information on the Karen Sternheim Memorial Scholarship, please visit the website at http://www.sla.org/chapter/csca/stern.htm.

2000-2001 Karen Sternheim Memorial Scholarship Committee
Chair: Susan M. Hendrickson, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Members: Linda Adams, Boston Consulting Group
Marsha Wyler, Ernst & Young

Last Year’s Winners: Keeping Busy!

Laurie Blasingame, who graduated with honors from San Diego State University with a B.S. in Nursing, is continuing her studies at San Jose State University-Fullerton; she expects to earn her MLIS in May 2002. Laurie is currently working part time as a research librarian for a small start-up company in San Diego. In the past, she has worked as a staff RN, head nurse, and nursing supervisor; as a result, she has extensive clinical nursing experience in critical care, cardiovascular stress testing, post-anesthesia recovery, and outpatient surgery. Laurie is interested in the biomedical knowledge base and its integration into clinical information systems, and her goal is to be part of the design and implementation of applications of medical informatics to the clinical practice of medicine and nursing.

Natasha Bergson-Michelson sends her thanks to the chapter for its encouragement and support. During the past year, she has been studying methodology to use in her research on copyright and corporate libraries, a topic of great interest to her. Since receiving the scholarship last April, she has finished her coursework at San Jose State and now has only culminating work outstanding. Natasha has been working hard at applying her academic interest in both knowledge management and library marketing at McKenna Enterprises. The library and research unit was just redesigned and re-launched, which called for some internal marketing. In addition to designing all new training materials, Natasha is in the process of preparing a package with dice to send off to each consultant that reads: "Use the [library] or you might as well use these!" The library has been putting to work the concepts Natasha learned in a class on knowledge management with a new KM system that will help capture the most current and insightful information and reduce redundancies in research. In the middle of all this, Natasha took some time off to start a family. She boasts, "My eight-month-old can recognize a citation by this point, and believe me, he loves books—he devours them whole!"

Susan Hendrickson
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Chair, Scholarship Committee, 2000-2001