EBSCO Announces 2012 Charleston Conference Scholarship Winner

EBSCO is pleased to announce the winner of its 2012 Charleston Conference Scholarship: Zeeshan Ullah, assistant librarian at Central Library, Islamia College Peshawar, Pakistan. This year’s event — the 32nd Annual Charleston Conference, titled “Accentuate the Positive” — will be held November 7 – 10, 2012, in Charleston, S.C.

Applicants for the scholarship were asked to consider the topic “Looking for the Silver Lining: Positive Outcomes from Troubled Times” and submit a short essay detailing how a potentially negative situation could yield or has yielded a positive outcome as a result of implementing resourceful strategies in the library.

Mr. Ullah’s winning essay outlines how academic libraries can better serve their users through continued collaboration with other institutions through resource sharing. He explains that this collaborative information exchange can be expanded through virtual libraries by way of “an e-services branch — a place where users can do anything online that they could do in a library, such as accessing all content and services (text, audiovisual materials, etc.); interacting live with a librarian anytime; talking to other users; getting book suggestions; reserving titles; obtaining online information about meticulous topics; issuing and returning books online; and more. You can read Mr. Ullah’s entire essay at the Charleston Conference website.

This is EBSCO’s fourth year sponsoring a Charleston Conference scholarship; funds must be used by the winning librarian for conference registration and related expenses. Judges for this year’s scholarship were Katina Strauch, head of collection development, College of Charleston; Rick Anderson, associate director for scholarly resources and collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah; and Kittie Henderson, director of academic and law divisions, EBSCO Information Services.