They're Going to Disneyland!

I'm so pleased to report that not one, but three colleagues here at the University of Kentucky Libraries have been recognized by ALA:

Dean Carol Pitts Diedrichs has won the Ross Atkinson Lifetime Achievement Award. A number of us have commented that she seems too young for a lifetime achievement award. (And no, I'm not just saying that to get in good with the boss.) We are very proud of her efforts and are delighted she has been recognized with this prestigious honor. A few words from the press release:

The ultimate practitioner/scholar, Diedrichs has written and spoken extensively on issues in acquisitions, serials, electronic resources, preservation, collection development, technical services organization and scholarly communication. She served for more than a decade as the editor-in-chief of Library Collections, Acquisitions, and Technical Services, one of the premier peer-reviewed journals in the field. With colleague Trisha Davis, she developed the first Web-based course, Fundamentals of Acquisitions, offered by ALCTS, for which she was honored with an ALCTS Presidential Citation. Through her publications, presentations, committee assignments and consultancies, she has significantly influenced best practice in the rapidly changing fields of collections and acquisitions.

Becky Ryder, Head of Preservation, has won the first ever LBI George Cunha and Susan Swartzburg Preservation Award. In addition to her outstanding, internationally recognized work in preservation, Becky is also a great traveling companion (Ecuador '06--woo!). An excerpt from the press release:

With her expertise in preservation microfilming efforts, she has readily moved that expertise into the digital environment. For 12 years she was project director of the SOLINET/ASERL cooperative microfilming projects. Ms. Ryder also has served as project co-manager of “Beyond the Shelf: Serving Historic Kentuckiana Through Virtual Access,” through which 2,700 titles serving as the premier representation of Kentucky history are available through the Kentucky Virtual Library. She has been an integral part of the University of Kentucky National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) team, since the inception of the program in 2005. Taking lessons learned from NDNP, she and her institutional colleagues developed the “Meta - Morphosis” conference to share approaches in converting early newspapers on microfilm and preserving the resulting digital content. Ryder's work with the Keenland Racetrack Library on a hybrid microfilm/digital project makes available a keyword searchable digital archive of the Triple Crown race coverage, while preserving the physical volumes and addressing long-term storage of the digital files.

Finally, I am especially delighted that my colleague here at the Hub, Alice Wasielewski, has won an ALA/EBSCO Conference Sponsorship to attend the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, CA. The award provides up to $1000 to reimburse expenses to attend the 2008 ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, CA. Only ten applicants are selected annually for this competitive national award. Alice has been an essential part of the Hub team since opening day in early 2007. This award is well-deserved, and I am so happy for her.

Congratulations you all!