The Mississippi County Library System’s Assistant Director, Billie Bowman, has been chosen as a recipient of the MLS (Master’s degree in Library and Information Science) Scholarship Assistance. This is a program open to individuals employed in public library administrative positions and is offered by the Arkansas State Library to receive tuition reimbursement. We are proud of her efforts to meet the qualifications of this program!
To qualify for tuition reimbursement, she had to complete 12 hours in an ALA (American Library Association) accredited library program and have at least a 3.0 GPA in her completed classes. To continue receiving this scholarship, she will have to maintain this 3.0 GPA. After graduating, she must remain employed by an Arkansas public library for at least one year.
Billie is in her third semester of this program at the University of Kentucky. She is on track to graduate from the program in 2025. She is the Assistant Director of our library system, and she handles programming, grant writing, and various other things that may fall into her scope of responsibilities.
Billie has a library degree currently, through the University of Central Arkansas. This degree, however, is only applicable for school libraries. She worked as a school librarian for many years before eventually finding her way to a public library. After working here for some time, she decided to pursue an ALA accredited Library and Information Science master’s degree which would certify her for public library administration.