Welcome to a showcase of the dynamic doers—a snapshot of those who have dedicated themselves to the profession, who have gone above and beyond, and whose contributions have been so significant and so varied. These individuals and institutions have been recognized by their colleagues and friends for jobs well done. From Joseph W. Lippincott recipient Thomas C. Phelps, the mastermind of the popular “Let’s Talk About It” reading and discussion series, to Queens (N.Y.) Public Library, the recipient of the Marshall Cavendish Excellence in Library Programming Award for responding to community needs in the area of cancer detection, American Libraries is proud to highlight the Association’s best of the best. What follows is only a snapshot of the 200+ awards presented annually by the American Library Association, its divisions, round tables, offices, and other units. Meet more winners at www.ala.org.
KEN HAYCOCK
Mentor to Students
Beta Phi Mu Award of $1,000 for distinguished service to education in librarianship.
Donor: Beta Phi Mu International Honor Society
Ken Haycock, professor and director of the School of Library and Information Science at San José (Calif.) State University, was commended him for his long and distinguished career as an educator and mentor to students, faculty, board members, and librarians; outstanding and far-reaching service to librarianship in the United States and Canada; history of leadership in a variety of important library organizations, institutions, government agencies, and boards; laudable record of research, publication, professional activity, and honors; and lifelong commitment to scholarship.
Haycock has held senior positions in both his native Canada and the United States, including director of the University of British Columbia’s School of Library, Archival, and Information Studies. He is also senior partner at Ken Haycock and Associates, Inc., which works with organizations to build capacity for leadership, collaboration, and advocacy.
At ALA, Haycock has served as chair of the National Steering Committee for the Congress on Professional Education and was a member of the Presidential Initiative Task Force on Education and Training, the Committee on Education, the Committee on Accreditation, the Association’s governing Council, and the Executive Board. He has also been president of many national and international associations, including the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) and the Canadian Library Association. Haycock established and chaired the awards jury of the First International Forum on Research in School Librarianship, served as director for North America of the International Association of School Librarianship, and was founding president of the Council for Canadian Learning Resources, initiating Canada’s only national journal for the review of Canadian books and other media for young people.
Haycock is the recipient of several significant professional honors and awards, including ALA’s Herbert and Virginia White Award for promoting the profession of librarianship, Canadian Library Association’s (CLA) Outstanding Service to Librarianship Award, CLA’s Margaret B. Scott Award of Merit, and ALISE’s Service Award and Professional Contributions to Library and Information Science Education Award.
QUEENS (N.Y.) LIBRARY
Offering Health Education to the Underserved
Marshall Cavendish Excellence in Library Programming Award of $2,000 to a school or public library that demonstrates excellence in library programming by providing programs that have community impact and respond to community needs.
Donor: Marshall Cavendish
With its Queens (N.Y.) Library HealthLink, funded through a five-year grant from the National Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health, the library partnered with the Queens Cancer Center, the American Cancer Society of Queens, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center to bring cancer information, screenings, and treatment referrals to medically underserved communities in the borough—an area with a lower rate of early stage cancer detection compared with the rest of New York State.
Public services staff in targeted libraries were intensively trained in referring customers to free and low-cost healthcare. Cancer detection and prevention literature was distributed through the library in English and several other languages, including the American Cancer Society’s low-reading-level series, which serves the library’s large population of low-literate adults and those for whom English is a second language. Workshops in English and Spanish were held in the libraries on topics such as colorectal cancer, prostate cancer, cervical cancer, breast cancer, nutrition, and healthy living. The educational programming reached nearly 1,100 people at more than 50 separate events. A mobile mammography screening van visited participating libraries, and where budget permitted, another mobile van visited where patrons could receive pap smears and colorectal and prostate screenings. Referrals and follow-up visits were made by the healthcare professionals and those wishing to be screened signed up at the library.
The program also provided two grant-funded community outreach coordinators on staff under the supervision of the library’s special services department. The coordinators organized Cancer Action Councils in the targeted libraries. Healthcare seekers were also introduced to other library services, such as English classes, homework help for children, adult basic education, family literacy, and health literacy classes.
BRIAN E. C. SCHOTTLAENDER
Research Projects Expert
Melvil Dewey Medal of $2,000 for creative professional achievement in library management, training, cataloging, and classification, and the tools and techniques of librarianship.
Donor: OCLC/Forest Press
Brian E. C. Schottlaender, Audrey Geisel University Librarian at the University of California, San Diego, was honored for his many accomplishments during a long and distinguished career in major research libraries, excelling as principal investigator in major research projects and as a prolific presenter and author.
His many initiatives, aimed at improving library service both within UC San Diego and in the University of California (UC) system as a whole, include work on digital collections; applications of supercomputing; the next generation of the UC’s MELVYL union catalog; the design and use of UC San Diego’s university library buildings; and rationalizing UC’s library collections. Schottlaender’s professional contributions include serving as president of the Association of Research Libraries and ALA’s Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS), and work connected with OCLC and the Hathi Trust. He is the author of many publications on cataloging, digital libraries, special collections, and a variety of other topics, as well as a presenter on a variety of subjects at national, state, and specialized conferences.
Schottlaender has served on ALA’s ALCTS board of directors and several Association of College and Research Libraries committees. He was a member of the Joint Steering Committee for the Revision of AACR (now the Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA) as ALA’s representative, chair of the Library of Congress’s Program for Cooperative Cataloging, and on several OCLC committees. He is currently secretary of the Center for Research Libraries Board of Directors, a member of the Hathi Trust Executive Committee, and an elected delegate to OCLC’s Global Council. He has received the ALCTS’s Ross Atkinson Lifetime Achievement Award and the Margaret Mann Citation.
According to the award jury, Schottlaender’s career achievements, when taken together, “demonstrate the high-level ‘creative professional achievement in library management and the tools and techniques of librarianship’ that the Dewey Medal was established to honor.”
PATRICIA TARIN
Leader in Diversity Issues and Cultural Community Outreach
Equality Award of $1,000 for an outstanding contribution that promotes equality in the library profession.
Donor: Scarecrow Press
Noted for her outstanding and continuing efforts to provide venues where librarians from traditionally underrepresented groups can contribute to the profession, Patricia Tarin, training officer at San Francisco (Calif.) Public Library, has held a number of leadership positions in academic and public libraries and government agencies throughout her career. Her leadership on issues of diversity and outreach to cultural communities has broadened the services of ALA while providing a framework for inclusion within the library profession.
Tarin’s vision for the development of initiatives to advance participation by minorities and women in librarianship has garnered recognition, including being named Hispanic Librarian of the Year by Reforma (the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking), an ALA affiliate. She has also received ALA’s Elizabeth Futas Catalyst for Change Award.
She initiated and directed Knowledge River at the University of Arizona’s School of Information Resources and Library Science. Now in its eighth year, Knowledge River was designed to recruit Hispanics and Native Americans to librarianship. While Tarin was director, more than 90% of Knowledge River students completed the program and many went on to prestigious placements at the National Library of Medicine, Yale University, the Library of Congress, and ALA.
Tarin also worked with ALA leadership on crafting the Association’s Spectrum Initiative, which provides scholarships to minority students seeking careers in librarianship, into a thriving program that has funded more than 500 scholars. Early in her career, Tarin articulated the concerns of minorities within the profession through her research and publications. In 1978, she collaborated with Yolanda Cuesta to create “Guidelines for Library Service to the Spanish-Speaking,” which would later become part of the ALA platform for service to diverse communities. Tarin’s 1988 article, “RAND Misses the Point: A ‘Minority’ Report,” highlighted what she believed were oversights in the Rand report on California’s ethnic and racial diversity.
ROBERT M. O’NEIL
First Amendment Advocate
The Freedom to Read Foundation Roll of Honor Award recognizes individuals who have contributed substantially to the foundation through adherence to its principles and/or substantial monetary support.
Sponsor: Freedom to Read Foundation
Robert M. O’Neil, director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression at the University of Virginia (UVA), has a storied history as an advocate for the First Amendment.
He began his legal career as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., in 1962, and from there held a number of positions in academia, including UVA president. As founding director of the Thomas Jefferson Center, he helped establish the Jefferson Muzzles, which call attention to those who have abridged free speech and press.
O’Neil has made academic freedom a hallmark of his career, particularly through his work with the Over its 30 years, the Center has participated in dozens of legal briefs promoting the First Amendment. O’Neil has made academic freedom a hallmark of his career, particularly through his work with the American Association of University Professors. He is the author of several books as well as many articles in law reviews and other journals. He is also a member of the National Advisory Board of the American Civil Liberties Union.
LOIDA GARCÍA-FEBO
National and International Recruiter
The Elizabeth Futas Catalyst for Change Award of $1,000 is given biennially to an individual for making positive changes in the profession of librarianship.
Donor: Elizabeh Futas Memorial Fund
Loida García-Febo, assistant coordinator of the New Americans Program and Special Services at Queens (N.Y.) Library, was recognized for her research, conference presentations, and work to recruit and involve new librarians in professional work, both nationally and internationally. At Queens, as well as in her past work in Puerto Rico, García-Febo developed programs and services for older adults, persons with disabilities, immigrants, and other underserved populations.
In her professional association work with the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, ALA, and Reforma, (the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking), she has dedicated herself to connecting new library professionals with established librarians and encouraging minority recruitment and retention in the profession. García-Febo’s research, presentations, conference planning, and advocacy bridge the gap between new and established librarians on a national and international scale and have taken her to South Africa, Argentina, Japan, and Italy.
PRINCETON (N.J.) PUBLIC LIBRARY
Money Generators in Hard Economic Times
Gale Cengage Learning Financial Development Award of $2,500 is presented to a library organization for financial development to secure new funding sources for a public or academic library.
Donor: Gale Cengage Learning
“It is because of the extraordinary volunteer effort from the Friends of the Princeton (N.J.) Public Library that we have turned what could have been a disastrous financial situation into an opportunity for new income for the library,” said library Director Leslie Burger. “Their commitment to support the library’s new collection purchases motivated them to succeed. The Friends now provide close to 70% of the annual revenue needed to purchase library materials each year.”
The Friends group moved a small, inconspicuous book sale from a corner of the library into a larger space that had once been the library gift shop. This highly visible space allowed enough room for an attractive retail arrangement of materials by category, providing a pleasant browsing experience for shoppers. Not only did donations of books to the library increase, but the number of volunteers working in the store also increased as word spread about the fun of sorting through the donations to choose items for sale. Annual revenue from the space increased from $5,000 in gift store sales to $70,000 in book sales.
The award jury was impressed that the Friends of the Princeton Public Library was able to create an impressive new revenue stream in a down economy by turning an unsuccessful library gift shop into a vibrant used book store.
ROBERT E. DUGAN, PETER HERNON, and DANUTA A. NITECKI
Academics with a Flare for Efficiency
Greenwood Publishing Group Award for the Best Book in Library Literature of $5,000 each for the best book that helps library professionals in the areas of management principles and practice, understanding and application of new techniques, or furthering the education of librarians or other information professionals.
Donor: Greenwood Publishing Group.
Viewing Library Metrics from Different Perspectives: Inputs, Outputs, and Outcomes (Libraries Unlimited) by Robert E. Dugan, Peter Hernon, and Danuta A. Nitecki was selected from a strong field of nominated books on many aspects of librarianship. The committee praised the authors’ comprehensive approach to an issue that pervades every aspect of modern library life; their exhaustive coverage of all aspects of the topic; the enduring relevance of their work; their combination of readability and thorough scholarship; and the fact that this book fills an important gap in modern library literature.
Dugan is director of the Mildred F. Sawyer Library at Suffolk University in Boston. He has worked in public, state, and academic libraries and has published extensively on outcomes assessment, planning, information policy, telecommunications, library buildings, information technologies, metrics, financial management, and the Federal Depository Library Program.
Hernon is a professor at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College in Boston. He has taught courses in government information policy, evaluation of information services, research methods, leadership, and academic librarianship at Simmons, the University of Arizona, and Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Hernon’s extensive list of publications includes Assessing Service Quality (American Library Association, 1998), which was the winner of the Highsmith Award for outstanding contribution to the literature of library and information science and is now in its second edition (American Library Association, 2010). In 2008, Hernon was named Academic/Research Librarian of the Year by ALA’s Association of College and Research Libraries.
Nitecki is dean of libraries at Drexel University in Philadelphia and professor in Drexel’s College of Information Science and Technology. She has served as associate university librarian at Yale University’s Sterling Memorial Library in New Haven, Connecticut, and as library administrator at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Maryland in College Park. Nitecki is also a professor in the doctoral program in managerial leadership in the information professions at Simmons. She has published extensively in the areas of service quality, document delivery, digital images in teaching and learning, and technology and public service.
MICHAEL GORMAN
Educator, Activist, and Writer
Ken Haycock Award for Promoting Librarianship of $1,000 honors an individual for contributing significantly to the public recognition and appreciation of librarianship through professional performance, teaching, and/or writing.
Donor: Ken Haycock
Michael Gorman, university librarian emeritus, Henry Madden Library, California State University, Fresno, was selected for his lifetime contribution toward promoting the profession with dedication, intelligence, and passion through many written works and hundreds of spoken presentations. He has been promoting the profession for decades as an educator, an activist, and a writer.
Gorman, a past president of ALA, has become a spokesman for the values of librarianship through his highly accessible writings for publications, including the Los Angeles Times, American Libraries, Library Journal, and the Bodleian Library Record. He has written books about the profession of librarianship and the value of traditional librarianship, including Our Enduring Values: Librarianship in the 21st Century (ALA, 2000) and Our Own Selves: More Meditations for Librarians, (ALA, 2005), some of which have become foundation reading for today’s library school students as well as experienced professionals.
According to the award jury, Gorman “may be best known as one of the editors of the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, but in reality it is his promotion of library education, promotion of the profession at large, and his commitment to libraries that is his lasting legacy.”
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, ANN ARBOR
Integrators of Technology and Research
ALA/Information Today Library of the Future Award of $1,500 is presented to an individual, library consortium, group of librarians, or support organization for innovative planning, application, or development of patron training programs about information technology in a library setting.
Donor: Information Today, Inc.
The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor started its Enriching Scholarship program in 1998, a collaborative effort between the university library, campus information technology divisions, and campuswide academic support units that offers dozens of workshops in a weeklong curriculum each year. Enriching Scholarship is designed to enhance the effective integration of scholarly content and technology into teaching, service, and research activities.
The program offers faculty an opportunity to take a rich array of workshops on an extensive variety of topics, broadly clustered into six categories: web authoring and enhancement; proposals, funding, and evaluation; multimedia tools; information management; technology for use in non–English language instruction; and course development
University officials report that 5,500 individuals have attended nearly 340 sessions centered on the rapidly changing field of technology and its impact on incoming students and the University of Michigan community at large.
THOMAS C. PHELPS
Visionary Creator of Humanities Programming
Joseph W. Lippincott award of $1,000 for outstanding participation in professional library activities, notable published professional writing, or other significant activities on behalf of the profession.
Donor: Joseph W. Lippincott III.
Thomas C. Phelps, director of the Division of Public Programs at the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in Washington, D.C., was acknowledged for his many achievements during a varied and dynamic career. As assistant director and then director of public programs at NEH, he essentially invented the idea of awarding grants to libraries all across the country, in collaboration with ALA, to engage in humanities programming for the general public, beginning with the highly popular “Let’s Talk About It” reading and discussion program started in 1984 in all 50 states .
An ALA member for over 40 years, Phelps had a long career at the Salt Lake City (Utah) Public Library, rising to the position of director of the Central Library before joining NEH. A scholar and teacher, he has published poetry, short stories, and children’s plays. Phelps also served as an adjunct faculty member at the library schools of Catholic University of America and the University of Maryland, mentoring many emerging leaders. He works quietly behind the scenes inventing new forms of public programming for libraries, including traveling exhibits around which libraries can develop communitywide educational experiences.
Phelps has served on numerous ALA committees, including chair of the Planning Committee and on multiple committees of ALA’s Public Library Association. He has been the recipient of many awards that have recognized his contributions to the humanities. Phelps’s latest effort, “Picturing America,” is bringing art images to 60,000 public and school libraries around the country.
JONI RICHARDS BODART
Creator of Lifelong Learners
Scholastic Library Publishing Award of $1,000 for an unusual contribution to the stimulation and guidance of reading by children and young people that exemplifies outstanding achievement in the profession.
Donor: Scholastic Library Publishing
Joni Richards Bodart, assistant professor at the School of Library and Information Science at San José (Calif.) State University, is an outstanding leader in the field of librarianship and children’s and young adult literature. Her imaginative vision, acute intellect, and stellar leadership benefit the students and librarians she teaches and works with and, through them, the children they serve. Richards developed the modern booktalk into the complex and effective strategy that it is today and conveyed that crucial skill to thousands of youth librarians.
She is the author of 19 books, the most recent of which is Radical Reads 2: Working With and Defending the Newest Edgy YA Fiction. Richards promoted and advocated for the value of controversial literature for young adults, demonstrating how to defend gritty, bleak, and difficult titles in the two volumes of Radical Reads. She taught young adult literature and related subjects at four major schools of information studies and chaired six different committees in ALA’s Young Adult Library Services Association. Richards has worked directly with teens in public libraries in California, Colorado, and New Mexico.
NEEL PARIKH
Early Learning Leader
The Sullivan Award for Public Library Administrators Supporting Services to Children, to an individual who has shown exceptional understanding and support for public library service to children while having general management, supervisory, or administrative responsibility that has included public library service for children in its scope.
Donor: Peggy Sullivan
Neel Parikh, executive director of the Pierce County (Wash.) Library System, received the award for “her obvious desire to do the right thing for kids by working doggedly to produce the best project or partnership that helps public libraries do more for young children.” At her direction, the library system has become a leader in providing early learning training and support for families, childcare providers, and library staff both locally and across the state. While Parikh believes that early learning is a critical service for all public libraries, she maintains that teen services are equally important. She supported the library system becoming one of the first Libraries of Promise, which seeks to move people to build the character and competence of children by providing them access to learning.
Parikh collaborated with social service organizations, schools, cities, and many community leaders and organizations to build services that directly help the youngest learners. She is a founding member and chair of the Early Learning Public Library Partnership, a consortium created with the vision that public libraries are full, essential partners in the early learning movement in Washington State. Under her leadership, the partnership has grown from 18 to 27 public libraries across the state. The consortium puts public libraries at the table with other early learning organizations and helps communities see the value of library services in local early education efforts.
She has been a member of ALA’s governing Council and served on the board of directors of ALA’s Public Library Association. Parikh also served on the executive committee of the Washington Library Association.
CASE WESTERN UNIVERSITY, KELVIN SMITH LIBRARY
Training Technology Experts
H. W. Wilson Library Staff Development Award of $3,500 to a library organization for a program to further its staff development goals and objectives.
Donor: H. W. Wilson Company
Case Western Reserve University’s Kelvin Smith Library in Cleveland, Ohio, will use the grant money for the Traveling and Training with Technology (T3): A Tool Kit for Staff Development traveling training program designed to build upon the library’s established CaseLearns training. The goal is to bring continuing education directly to staff members.
The university and library are part of Cleveland’s University Circle Incorporated (UCI), a 550-acre park-like environment located where approximately 50 cultural, medical, educational, religious, and social service institutions are located at the eastern edge of the city. The T3 training project is designed to build on established collaborative relationships between the university libraries and the libraries of the variety of institutions associated with UCI. The goal is to meet continuing education needs of librarians and alleviate the strain on budgets and time that a more centralized training program creates.
BOOK AWARDS
W. Y. BOYD LITERARY AWARD
John Hough Jr. is the winner of the 2010 W. Y. Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction for his novel Seen the Glory: A Novel of the Battle of Gettysburg (Simon and Schuster). The $5,000 award is given to the author of a military novel that honors the service of American veterans during a time of war.
The book tells the story of two brothers, Luke and Thomas Chandler, who enlist in the 20th Massachusetts Regiment to fight in the Civil War. Hough chronicles the lives of the brothers from Martha’s Vineyard as they grow into their teens and their enlistment in the Union Army. The impact of the mass casualties as a result of the battle and the tremendous task of caring for the dead and wounded are detailed.
SCHNEIDER FAMILY BOOK AWARDS
The Schneider Family Book Awards of $5,000 honor authors or illustrators for books that embody an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences. Recipients are selected in three categories: birth through grade school (age 0–10), middle school (age 11–13), and teens (age 13–18).
Author and illustrator Bonnie Christensen won the young children category for Django (Roaring Brook), the biography of jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, who was in an accident that severely burned his hands and threatened to end his career.
Nora Raleigh Baskin, author of Anything But Typical (Simon and Schuster), is the winner of the middle-school award for the story about Jason Blake, a boy with autism who considers himself to be anything but typical. However, his life is that of a conventional 12-year-old boy: He wants a girlfriend, to fit in, and to be recognized for his creative writing.
The teen award winner is Francisco X. Stork for Marcelo in the Real World (Scholastic), about Marcelo Sandoval, who has Asperger’s Syndrome. He is pushed beyond his comfort zone when forced to take a job in his father’s law firm. Over the course of a tumultuous summer, Marcelo learns what it is to be a friend, to stand up for what he believes in, and that he can create a place for himself in the real world.
ALA TRUSTEE CITATION AWARDS
ALA Trustee Citation Award recognizes public library trustees for distinguished service to library development, and symbolizes and honors the best contribution and efforts of the estimated 60,000 American citizens who serve on library boards.
Sponsor: Association of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends, and Foundations.
Robert O. Bonam
Robert O. Bonam has served continuously as a trustee of the Rochester (Mich.) Hills Public Library for 27 years, during which he has also been a member of ALA. He currently serves as RHPL board treasurer and owns and operates his own accounting firm, R. Bonam Accounting.
His greatest involvement has been with the library’s finances, helping to negotiate a creative purchase agreement that saved $75,000 during the sale of the old library. In addition, Bonam negotiated contracts among three cooperating communities to provide a steady revenue stream for RHPL while offering quality library service to the residents of all the communities. He has also been involved in the management and structure of library investments, which have earned the library outstanding returns, and the establishment of a library endowment that has grown from $30,000 to $150,000.
Margaret J. “Peggy” Danhof
Margaret J. “Peggy” Danhof has served as a trustee of Fountaindale Public Library in Bolingbrook, Illinois, for 15 years. She was elected board president in 2003 and has since helped oversee a space needs analysis, community survey, and plan for a new building. She was part of an effort to successfully pass a $48.6-million referendum to construct a new main library in Bolingbrook and a $5-million renovation of a branch library in Romeoville, Illinois. A groundbreaking ceremony was held in August 2009, and the anticipated opening date of the new building is estimated for early 2011.
Immediate past co-president of ALA’s Association of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends, and Foundations (ALTAFF), Danhof serves as ALTAFF’s nomination chairman. She is also a member of ALA’s Committee on Advocacy and Advocacy Coordinating Committee. She is a member of the Illinois Library Association and its Trustee Forum and served as a board member of the Prairie Area Library System from 2004 to 2008, serving as treasurer in her second term. Danhof has been an ALA member since 1998, joining the former Association for Library Trustees and Advocates (ALTA) Membership Committee in 2004. She has also served as acting chairman for ALTA’s Intellectual Freedom Committee and ALTA president.
