Students in Dr. Wertheimer’s LIS 650 Management of Libraries and Information Centers class this spring completed service projects in the local community to practice their managerial skills. Jennifer Duncklee, Michelle Hatami, Lori Misaka, and Jesse Shiroma worked with Kalani High School librarian Daphne Miyashiro to raise funds for the Hawai‘i Association of School Librarians (HASL). Daphne was the HASL National Library Week chair, and set up a fundraiser at Barnes & Noble; the LIS student group helped coordinate marketing, scheduled volunteers, created promotional and advocacy materials, and worked at the book fair. They are pleased to report that this year’s fundraising total is $5056.46 from in-store and online sales, which will go toward supporting HASL’s efforts for school libraries. A big mahalo to the volunteers, Barnes & Noble, and Daphne for helping to make Jenn, Michelle, Lori, and Jesse’s project a success!
Other student team projects included a “Lei Making 101” event at a local library (Kylee Munro & Jessika Ross), WCDI / Salawaket Crossing (Michelle Carino), “Ka Hana Mana a Nā Haumāna”(Ikaika Keliiliki), and creating a plan for a STEM-lego event on a Hawaii Island Public Library (Hayley Barte, Bianca Nabarrete-Lopez, & Bonnie Barron). Wertheimer explained that these projects highlight our program’s interest in community engagement and also let students experiment with doing real-world projects and employing different managerial competencies. He added that all of these projects demonstrate the importance of developing leaders who can help libraries to meet local problems with innovative solutions.