Madeleine McCormick | Assistant News Editor

Alyssa Grigsby, Digital Resources and Technical Services Librarian, recently received the Iowa Library Association (ILA) scholarship to attend the ILA conference in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on October 22nd through the 24th.

Grigsby applied on counts of the scholarship which include; being a paid member, being a first time attendee, and having worked in an academic or research library in Iowa for less than 3 years.

She was introduced to the scholarship from her boss, Jodie Morin, who is BVU’s Library Director. Grigsby was required to write a 500 word essay telling why she would be a good candidate for the conference and was selected. The scholarship includes paid conference attendance and up to 150 dollars of expenses. Usually, librarians have an account that holds a travel stipend. She was grateful to receive the scholarship because she didn’t have to take money from her stipend to use, and she hopes to use that money for other upcoming events.

Grigsby says attending this conference is important to her because when she was getting her graduate degree from the University of Iowa, all of her classmates would attend the conference and she was never able to go. She told us that she uses this conference to see some of her college friends and reconnect with them.

“I hope to meet some people and get some ideas from outside of the Iowa City area,” Grigsby said.

Grigsby notes that conferences are important to go to. Through them, librarians are able to keep up with the latest trends and introduce themselves to new materials and ideas.

Attending this conference will help Grigsby during her career at BVU with reaching out to students with better knowledge about research techniques and library networking.