Our 4 newly-appointed 2009 Dorothy Helfeld Fellows are :
Hayley Beale, Jennifer Bown-Olmedos, Sally Engelfried, and Samantha Godbey.

Children's Librarianship - Is it for you?
The Association of Children's Librarians of Northern California (ACL) invites students of children's librarianship and/or children's literature to apply for one of three annual membership scholarships. Discover a network of active Bay Area children's librarians who meet monthly to share their passion for children's literature and libraries. The three annual scholarships cover the cost of a year's membership in ACL, the 11 issues of BayViews and attendance at the annual Institute. The winner of this scholarship would be expected to attend monthly meetings in the East Bay and to review books and partake in the business of the organization to a reasonable extent.

Who is eligible?
Anyone currently in Library School who may be considering working with children; librarians considering a possible change; para-professionals working in school libraries; teachers who may be considering moving to school or public library positions; college students who may be considering library work with children. Students considering or embarking on their studies in children's librarianship will find an encouraging and challenging community of like-minded individuals.

ACL
The Association of Children's Librarians of Northern California (ACL) offers three annual membership scholarships in tribute to Dorothy Helfeld, a member and reviewer for this organization from 1992 until her death in 2008. ACL has met monthly in the San Francisco Bay Area since the 1930s to review newly published children's books. Reviews are published in the journal BayViews which includes a section for storytime ideas, library and book-related news of interest to our members and announcements of various meetings or group activities. ACL also hosts an annual Institute on a subject of timely interest to children's librarians, teachers and other adults who work with children and books. Leading authors and individuals closely tied to the subject of the Institute are invited to speak and library materials supporting each year's topic are highlighted.

Dorothy Helfeld                              

Her ACL reviews reflected her passion for presenting the best to children and her always-growing knowledge of story and authors, which she also shared in her contributions to the annual Institute bibliographies. To Dorothy, reading offered boundless opportunity for celebrating, untangling and enduring the complicated knot of life. The scholarships in her memory allow the Association of Children's Librarians of Northern California to extend Dorothy's excitement about children and their books to those at the beginning of their involvement in the field which meant so much to her.

Applications
Are available online at www.bayviews.org/dhscholarship.doc (MS Word File). The 2009 applications were due by June 5, 2009. They were reviewed by a 3-person committee in the early summer and the winners were announced at the August 14, 2009 ACL meeting. The scholarship will begin in September and go through August, the ACL fiscal year. For further information, please contact: Elizabeth Overmyer at scholarship@bayviews.org .

The 2010 application process will be announced shortly.

This page last updated: August 17, 2009