AMICAL Launches Grant Program in Memory of JCU Librarian Elisabetta Morani

The AMICAL consortium has just launched the Elisabetta Morani Library Staff Development Fund grant program.  Elisabetta, JCU’s beloved Head Librarian, who passed away last November, was an active member of AMICAL, the consortium of American international liberal arts institutions, working together on common goals for libraries, technology, and learning.  The program was launched on April 13, in honor of Elisabetta’s birthday.

Elisabetta Morani

Says Interim Head Librarian Livia Piotto, “ The program was made possible thanks to the support of Elisabetta’s friends and colleagues who worked with her in AMICAL throughout the years and is an important acknowledgment of the work that Elisabetta did with the consortium representing JCU.”

In their founding proposal for this program,  Karen M. Bohrer and Susan L. Perry write:

Throughout her career, Elisabetta Morani was ever seeking to improve her own practical library skills, and she valued highly what she learned from her AMICAL colleagues. It is the aim of the Fund to give library staff within the consortium the opportunity to develop skills that will help them better do their work in their own libraries.

The program offers a limited number of micro-grants, 2-3 times a year, to support event registration, training fees, or other direct costs of practically-focused professional development activities for library staff.  Applications for funding may be submitted by any library staff member from any AMICAL member institution.

By tirelessly collaborating and creating synergies with faculty, staff, and students, Elisabetta managed to expand John Cabot University’s Frohring Library into one of the most important and modern English language libraries in Italy.

“On behalf of the JCU community, I would like to thank the AMICAL Consortium for their generous recognition of our dear Elisabetta,” said John Cabot University President Franco Pavoncello.

Read the article “Elisabetta Morani Library Staff Development Fund — Launch of grant program”