Taplin Scholarship Winners 2013

Congratulations to the 2013 winners of the Franklin P. Taplin Scholarships:

Tomi Eve                  Jones Library, Amherst 
Lee Appelbaum        West Stockbridge Public Library
Benjamin Kalish        Forbes Library, Northampton
Gale LaScala            Hamilton Memorial Library, Chester

Each of these winners will receive a $250 stipend to support their attendance at the Massachusetts Library Association Annual Conference in Cambridge.  These scholarships are awarded in memory of Franklin P. Taplin in order to support western Massachusetts library staff as they extend their experience and gain information from opportunities that conferences offer. 

 

Enjoy the conference.

Contacting Your Legislators – It’s Easy

A key part of our jobs as library supporters is to make sure that our legislators, a major source of funding for many programs critical to our libraries, are aware of what we need and how important these programs are to our users.  If you don’t know your legislators personally or have them on speed dial, the fastest most efficient way to contact them is to use the CapWiz service provided by the Massachusetts Library Association (MLA).
 
Go to the Massachusetts Library Association homepage.  Scroll down to Advocacy, and select CapWiz.  This is a PERFECT place to locate all you need to know about contacting Legislators.  Click on My Elected Officials, fill in your address and click GO.  CapWiz will provide direct email links to the Governor, your State Representative and Senator.  Click on each, cut and paste your message, send and you’re Almost done. 

Massachusetts is fortunate to have a Library Legislative Caucus.  It’s important to keep the caucus posted on your library related issues.  Please send another message to Kate.Hogan@mahouse.gov.  Representative Hogan is Chair of the Massachusetts Library Legislative Caucus.

Keeping your legislators informed is easy, thanks to CapWiz.