Sarah (and everyone else too),

Have you talked to Cathleen Bourdon about the scholarship idea? The reason
I ask is that ALA generally discourages individuals on committees from
approaching vendors for money without clearing it first. The concern in the
past has been that vendors get hit up by lots of people for small amounts
of money, ALA will come off looking disorganized, and in total we'll end up
with less money than if we went about it in a coordinated way. Also, there
are some rules about what constitutes a scholarship, how much money has to
be offered, and more I can't remember.

I've been thinking about the vendors from the Accessibility Pavilion last
year. At least some of them will be back for 2002, though I don't know
which ones for sure. However, I can't think of any who didn't tell me that
just exhibiting was stretching their budgets almost too far. ALA Annual is
a bigger and more expensive show than many. Still, they may be worth a try,
maybe even as a group. Deidre Ross should be able to get you the full list.
 I can come up with some of them right off the top of my head: Freedom
Scientific, AI Squared (ZoomText folks),  IBM Accessibility Center,
Tack-Tiles Braille Systems, the Reading Pen folks. Some were non-profits
like RFB&D and National Federation of the Blind,  who are unlikely to be
able to contribute. AlphaSmart wasn't in the Pavilion last year, but has
been a vendor at Annual for a while. We were hoping to get them into the
Pavilion this year.

Let's talk about this a little more. Maybe we can come up with a package
that would include a bit of expense money in it. We may not be able to call
it a scholarship, at least not yet!

Regards!
Audrey
-----Original Message-----
From:   Sarah Hamrick [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Tuesday, March 12, 2002 11:24 AM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        vendor suggestions

I'm working on a project for the Libraries Serving Special Populations
Section of ALA's ASCLA, and I could use some advice from AXSLIB
subscribers.  One of our goals for this year is to recruit new members,
and as part of that goal we sent letters to students at almost every
library school in the US and Canada.  We're encouraged by the positive
response we've had so far.

We've corresponded with all the students who have responded to our
initial letter and have encouraged them to make an effort to attend ALA
annual conference in Atlanta this summer.  Of course attending
conference can be expensive, so we are also advising them on various
funding sources for conference attendees.

In the course of our discussions we realized it would be great if we
could find a vendor or two who would be willing to put up some cash to
serve as scholarship money for students who want to attend conference
and are particularly interested in the area of services to people with
disabilities.  I'm willing to contact vendors on behalf of LSSPS, but
I'm not sure who would be the best to contact.  Having done this kind of
thing before I know it is very time-consuming, so I would prefer to come
up with a short list of potential donors.

Can any of you suggest any vendors that might be willing to help us
out?  It would be good PR for them and a great opportunity for a
student!

Sarah
--
Sarah E. Hamrick
Director of Information Services
Gallaudet University Library
800 Florida Avenue, NE
Washington, DC 20002
(202) 651-5214 V/T
(202) 651-5213 FAX
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