Every two years VALA offers up to two Travel Scholarships to enable suitable persons to travel overseas to examine aspects of library automation. Candidates proposing to study newer technologies of potential application in Australia but not yet seen here are most likely to be successful. No formal qualifications are required. Although candidates should be working in library or information related areas, they need not be employed in traditional library environments.

The successful candidates will receive up to AUD $13,000 towards travel, accommodation and living expenses. Successful candidates must complete their study by August 2011, and will be offered the opportunity of presenting a paper at the 16th VALA Biennial National Conference in February 2012.

VALA Travel Scholarship 2010

The VALA Travel Scholarship for 2010 is awarded to Tristan Badham from RMIT University.

Tristan will be travelling to the United Kingdom and the United States in order to investigate various uses of QR codes and mobile devices, most commonly smartphones, which assist library patrons to inform and expand their use of library facilities. He will investigate what what resources and information the QR codes refer people to, the maintenance and updates of QR codes when the information they refer to changes, and how it is decided what the codes will refer people to. His project would also investigate the possible expansion of their use.

We look forward to hearing the results of Tristan's research at the VALA2012 conference.

Congratulations, Tristan!

The VALA web site provides details on all our Travel Scholars. Travel Scholarship papers that are presented at the VALA Biennial Conference are identified on the VALA web site with the VALA Travel Scholar icon.