To honor the memory of Elisabetta Morani, former John Cabot University Head Librarian who died suddenly in November of last year, Karen M. Bohrer and Susan L. Perry have founded a program in Elisabetta’s name to support library staff development across the AMICAL Consortium.
The Elisabetta Morani Library Staff Development Grants program is being launched today, on April 13, in honor of Elisabetta’s birthday.
Present and highly engaged with the AMICAL Consortium ever since its inaugural meeting in 2004, Elisabetta helped to give both shape and life to our organization. Elisabetta was ever present as a constructively critical, friendly, enthused, passionate, engaging and generous colleague, someone who often and easily shifted her thinking beyond her own interests, to thinking about the interests of others and the collective interests of the consortium.
A fund supporting this program has been established by generous seed donations from Karen and Susan, former AMICAL colleagues and close friends of Elisabetta. In their founding proposal for this program, Karen and Susan write:
Throughout her career, Elisabetta Morani was ever seeking to improve her own practical library skills, and she valued highly what she learned from her AMICAL colleagues. It is the aim of the Fund to give library staff within the consortium the opportunity to develop skills that will help them better do their work in their own libraries.
Overview of the program
The program offers a limited number of micro grants, 2-3 times a year, to support event registration, training fees or other direct costs of practically-focused professional development activities for library staff. Requests should not exceed €500.
Applications for funding may be submitted by any library staff member from any AMICAL member institution (of any member category: Full, Affiliate, or Network). They should be working in a library role, but there is no requirement to have a masters or professional degree in library and information sciences.
This program aims to support activities that are:
- focused, pragmatic staff development, such as targeted workshops and courses
- targeting skill areas that relate to any aspect of library professional practice
Find out more and apply
The program is now open for applications through May 2. Find out more about the program, and how to apply, here:
Elisabetta Morani Library Staff Development Grants
Future calls for applications will be announced on AMICAL Connect two to three times a year, according to the remaining availability of funds for a given year: near the beginning of the Fall and Spring semesters, and in early Summer.
Contribute to the sustainability of the Fund
In addition to the founding donations from Karen and Susan, additional donations to the fund have been made by other colleagues and friends. New contributions are warmly welcomed and would help to sustain this valuable opportunity for AMICAL library staff, and preserve Elisabetta’s memory, into the future.
If you would like to contribute to the fund, email contact@amicalnet.org and we’ll send you instructions for how to do so.
Thanks
The Consortium extends its thanks to Karen and Susan for proposing and enabling this initiative, to the other colleagues and friends who have contributed to the Fund, and to the Elisabetta Morani Fund Committee members, who are helping to set up and administer this program:
- Jyldyz Bekbalaeva (Library Director, American University of Central Asia)
- Fatmeh Charafeddine (Associate University Librarian, Research and Academic Collaboration Services, American University of Beirut)
- Jeff Gima (AMICAL Consortium Director, American University of Paris)
- Livia Piotto (Interim Head Librarian, John Cabot University)
- Evi Tramantza (Director of Libraries, American College of Thessaloniki)