SIM congratulates Valerie Collins (MLIS 2015), who has been selected by the Library of Congress, in conjunction with the Institute of Museum and Library Services, to the 2015 class of the prestigious National Digital Stewardship Residency (NDSR) program in Washington, DC.

As the NDSR website states: “Residents of the NDSR program have the opportunity to develop, apply, and advance their digital stewardship knowledge and skills in real-world settings…attend a series of invited guest lectures, present and discuss their work regularly, and actively participate in the collaborative educational community established by the residency program. Residents also have the opportunity to present their project work to a national audience at a professional conference.”

Valerie underwent a rigorous application, selection, and interview process in order to be named one of the five residents for 2015-2016. She will be resident at the American Institute of Architects to co-lead testing and implementation of an institutional digital repository system to preserve born-digital records that represent AIA’s intellectual capital or that have permanent value for the history of the architectural profession.

The formal press announcement can be found here: http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2015/15-057.html.

Digital Stewardship, the act of acquiring, selecting, managing, preserving, and providing access to digital information, is an important and growing area in LIS and we congratulate Valerie on her new role advancing this area.

MLIS student Alieda Blandford is featured in today’s Halifax Metro about her brainchild, The Little Free Library Project. The Little Free Library outside the Open Mic House on Agricola Street has been stocked with free reads since September when Alieda Blandford and friends constructed the roughly two-foot wide space where anyone can pick up a book to keep, return for some one else, or drop off ones they no longer want.

Congratulations to Alieda and all the MLIS students involved in this important project.