The Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA) Scholarships and Awards Committee has selected Paul Lai as the recipient of the 2012 APALA Scholarship. Paul recently finished his first year in St. Catherine University’s Master’s in Library and Information Science program. He is a library intern at the Center for Transportation Studies at the University of Minnesota, and he previously interned at St. Mary’s University’s Library serving graduate students and in Hennepin Public Library’s preservation department.
He is interested in connecting his interests in the changing world of librarianship with the academic field of Asian American studies as well as with Asian American communities. Prior to returning to library school, Paul taught college courses in Asian American literature, published essays on contemporary literature, and edited collections of essays on topics such as Indigeneity and globalism. He blogs for Hack Library School and serves as fiction editor for the online literary journal Kartika Review. He is currently studying the political discourses surrounding the establishment of dog parks in the Twin Cities and the use of therapy dogs in library settings.
APALA provides a forum for discussing problems of APA librarians and for the exchange of ideas between APA librarians and other librarians, supports and encourages library services to APA communities, recruits and mentors APA librarians in the library/information science professions, seeks funding for scholarships in library/information science master’s programs, and provides a vehicle enabling APA librarians to cooperate with other associations and organizations with similar or allied interests. To become an APALA member, visit our website http://www.apalaweb.org/
The selection committee includes Shalini Channapatna, Tassanee Chitcharoen, Valeria E. Molteni, Jina Park, Safi Safiullah , Gayatri Singh, and Michelle Wu.
Past APALA Scholarship Winners
- Jina Park (2011)
- Harrison W. Inefuku (2010)
- Vivian Wong (2009)
- Michael Habata (2008)
- Julian Yoko Prentice (2007)
- Lana Thelen (2006)
- Richard Le (2005)
- Jody Lovaj (2004)
- Florante Ibanez and Thu Phuong Hoang Nguyen (2003)
- Todd Honma and Eydie Detera (2002)