Sponsored by J.J. Keller
The SLA Rising Star Award is presented annually to recognize a new member who shows exceptional promise of leadership and contribution to the association and profession.
The award will be presented to an outstanding SLA member who has one to five years of professional experience as an information professional. To be eligible, nominees must be SLA members for five years or less.
Nominees must meet one or more of the following criteria:
- Outstanding work and professional activities on behalf of SLA
- Develop notable innovations on the job
- Actively participate in SLA units and association programs
Promote the visibility of SLA or the value of information professionals
No more than five SLA Rising Star Awards will be awarded by SLA annually. Recipients will receive complimentary registration for the SLA Annual Conference & INFO-EXPO in the year in which they receive the award.
2011 Recipients of the SLA Rising Star Award
Sara Batts
Sara is a senior research librarian in the London office of Reed Smith LLP, an international relationship law firm with offices in the United States, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Sara has a masters' of information science degree from City University and is currently a PhD candidate at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom, where she is investigating the established church's use of the Internet. Sara is the author of her own blog, found at www.uncookeddata.wordpress.com.
An SLA member since 2009, Sara serves as the president of the SLA Europe Chapter and is international relations chair of SLA's Legal Division. Sara was introduced to SLA in 2009, when she won an Early Career Conference Award at the SLA Centennial Conference in Washington, D.C. She was quick to become involved in volunteer activities, joining the board of the SLA Europe Chapter in late 2009.
Since then, she has served as the chapter's bulletin editor, supported the First Five Years Council of SLA (an initiative to ensure SLA's communications are culturally relevant to international audiences), organized a session at the Internet Librarian Conference in the United Kingdom, and assisted with implementing social media and Web 2.0 tools within her chapter. She has presented at various conferences, including Internet Librarian International and Online Conference 2010.
Lisa Chow
Lisa is the web analyst for the Web Applications Department of the Brooklyn Public Library, where she collaboratively maintains the BPL website and Intranet site content and acts as liaison with all departments to develop appropriate website content. In addition, she manages a few special projects such as Book a Librarian, a user-centered reference service model where patrons can reserve one-on-one sessions with librarians for research assistance.
Lisa joined SLA in 2008 and stepped into her first volunteer role as Webmaster for SLA@Pratt. As Webmaster, Lisa redesigned the chapter's website to incorporate social media and Web 2.0 tools like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and Delicious and established a wiki for the chapter's officers to provide effective record keeping. She suggested and helped plan the first annual SLA@Pratt Career Fair, then spoke at the event the following year after she graduated. Lisa also co-organized the Library Workers' Skill Share event, where workshops and mentoring sessions were offered.
Lisa is currently the chair of the Medical Section of the Biomedical and Life Sciences Division of SLA. In November 2010, she co-authored "In Library School or Job Hunting? Tips to Build Up Your Professional Career" an article at LIScareer.com. She earned an MLIS degree from the Pratt Institute in New York.
Clara Cabrera
Clara is the reference specialist at the law firm of WilmerHale, where she oversees circulation, monitors court dockets, maintains the library collection, and performs research and analysis with digital resources. Clara has a BA in Sociology from Brooklyn College and an MLIS from the Pratt Institute. She advises information science students in the New York metropolitan area, and remains active in the New York Chapter of SLA as library school liaison and a member of the SLA-NY Advisory Board.
Clara joined SLA in 2007. She was involved with SLA before becoming an information professional, serving as treasurer for SLA@Pratt, a student chapter of SLA. After graduating from library school and joining the information profession full time, she accepted her first volunteer role--as joblog coordinator within the New York Chapter. In this role, Clara organized and updated a section of the chapter's Websites to provide members with resources and local job opportunities.
In 2010, Clara became the library school liaison for her chapter, working with six local graduate schools to notify faculty of scholarship and networking opportunities. She has since led an SLA Career Kick Off at St. John's University and the first SLA-NY Student Swing. The latter activity allowed library school students from five area schools to discuss future career paths with a panel of top library school students. 
Ashley Conaway
Ashley is the information analyst at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. She has held this position since 2007, training staff on various products, technologies, and collaboration tools. Ashley earned an MLIS degree from the University of Pittsburgh. In 2010, Ashley co-authored a paper titled "Designing for Information Discovery: User Needs Analysis." The paper can be found here: http://www.jhuapl.edu/techdigest/TD/td2803/32Conaway.pdf
Ashley is president of the SLA Maryland Chapter and joined SLA as a student member while completing her MLIS degree in 2006. That same year, she became vice president of the SLA Pittsburgh Student Group. In 2007, she served on the planning committee for the successful Maryland Chapter Technology Day Conference; the following year she became a chapter director. She implemented various Web 2.0 and social media tools, created the chapter's Facebook and LinkedIn pages, started the chapter's Flickr photo album, and advised on Web development.
As 2010 Programs Chair for the chapter, she co-chaired the Xtreme Reference Conference Planning Committee. The Xtreme Reference Conference attracted over 300 attendees, 10 sponsors, and 18 exhibitors from across the United States.
Christina Pryor
Christina the Manager of the St. Louis County Library Reference Department. Christina is active in various library associations and is a member of many SLA divisions. She is currently the public relations chair of the Missouri Library Association, where she has been a member since 2007. She has a Master of Arts degree in library science from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
She has been an SLA member since 2007, when she joined as a student, and is now president-elect of the St. Louis Metro Area Chapter of SLA.
As the St. Louis Chapter's first fundraising chair in 2008, Christina spearheaded fundraising efforts such as a student-oriented silent auction and a large-scale community trivia night. The success of these efforts allowed the chapter to establish an annual scholarship fund, which provides money to a chapter member to attend the SLA Annual Conference. Christina was later the chapter's public relations chair and assisted in recruiting members and analyzing the chapter's recruitment strategies.
Past Recipients of the SLA Rising Star Award
Michelle Dollinger (2009)
Julie Fleischhacker (2009)
Margaret Ostrander (2009)
Abby Thorne (2009)
Norah Xiao (2009)
Jessica Warner Beauchamp (2010)
Amy Buckland (2010)
Reece Dano (2010)
Bethan Ruddock (2010)
Chris Vestal (2010)
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