The University of Minnesota Libraries have opened registration for the 7th Biennial Minnesota Institute for Early Career Librarians from Traditionally Underrepresented Groups from July 10 through 16, 2010 on the Twin Cities campus. The Institute brings together a cohort of high potential academic librarians from underrepresented racial or ethnic groups in the first three years of their professional career for a unique leadership development experience. The intense week-long Institute provides training in leadership skills, organizational behavior, and practical grant writing skills. In addition, Institute participants join an active community of 140 previous graduates that provides support as they continue their professional careers.

Institute faculty DeEtta Jones Young (DeEtta Jones and Associates) and Kathryn Deiss (Association of College and Research Libraries) are experienced organizational leadership development consultants and trainers who have led the professional and personal development component of the Institute since it began in 1998. Lori-Anne Williams, a successful independent grant writing consultant and frequent instructor at the University of Minnesota and nationally, will present a two-day session on grant writing.

Participants pay a modest $750 fee that includes housing in a hotel adjacent to the campus, lunches, opening and concluding dinner, and a midweek reception. Participants are responsible for travel arrangements, approval from their home institutions for the time commitment to participate in the Institute, and other expenses such as meals other than those noted above and local transportation during the Institute.

Participants are selected through a competitive application process. More information about the Institute and the application process is available at www.lib.umn.edu/sed/institute/ or potential applicants may contact Linda DeBeau-Melting, Associate University Librarian for Organizational Development or Peggy Johnson, Association University Librarian for Access Services.

Posted by Marlo Welshons at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The papers of renowned plant pathologist and humanitarian Norman Borlaug will continue to be a valuable learning and teaching resource in Minnesota, with improved accessibility worldwide, thanks to a Minnesota Historical and Cultural Grant.

The University of Minnesota Libraries have been awarded funds to digitize the papers of Norman Borlaug and related historical materials from the University Archives.

Borlaug--who received his BA (1937), MS (1941), and PhD (1942) at the University of Minnesota, won the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his development of the high-yield, disease resistant wheat that is credited with saving billions of people from starvation. Borlaug is known as the father of the "Green Revolution," a term coined in the 1960s to describe the transformation of agriculture that began in the 1940s with rapid advances in food crop production developed to keep pace with worldwide population growth. He passed away in 2009.

"The Borlaug Papers are among our most heavily used materials," said Elisabeth Kaplan, head of University Archives and project director. "They are especially popular with local high school students who use them in History Day projects. Digitizing these materials will make them accessible to an international community of scholars and researchers of all ages."

Fifty-eight boxes of archival material will be digitized, including five decades of field notebooks, the pocket-sized books in which Dr. Borlaug documented his travel and work in the field in Mexico, South America, Africa, the Middle East, South and South East Asia and Eastern Europe. Other items include Borlaug's correspondence with colleagues, mentors, and world leaders, talks and writings, multiple drafts of his Nobel acceptance speech, and over 7,500 photographs from the late 1940s through 2000.

Papers from some of Borlaug's contemporaries will also be included in the digital collection, including correspondence and photographs from E. C. Stakman, Borlaug's mentor and longtime head of the U plant pathology department; the papers of Helen Hart, U of M alumna and faculty member, and expert of cereal rust disease; and portions of the John Gibler Papers, U alumnus and colleague of Borlaug's at the Rockefeller Foundation.

The project, to be completed by May 2011, is supported by a $27,667 Minnesota Historical and Cultural Grant, a program supported by the Clean Water, Land, and Legacy Amendment. Approved by Minnesota voters in November 2008, the state constitutional amendment provides for an increase in Minnesota state sales tax to support outdoor heritage, clean water, parks and trails, as well as arts, history and cultural heritage. For more information about Norman Borlaug, read "A tribute to Norman Borlaug."

Posted by Marlo Welshons at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)