Outstanding Mentor/Trainer Nominees

How has the nominee demonstrated excellence in teaching, nurturing, or providing guidance to others? Please provide specific examples.

Janice has a depth of knowledge about acquired cataloging and local cataloging practice and willingly shares her experience and knowledge in a positive and motivational way. When I transferred from public services to technical services it had been a long time since my MLS cataloging classes. But Janice was an excellent teacher who patiently and clearly answered all of my questions. She wisely started with the basics and had a keen sense of when each step was mastered and when to move on to the next step so as to keep momentum but not overwhelm me with information.

How has the knowledge the nominee shared affected another person's or yours career?

What Janice taught me formed the strong foundation upon which to build the more specialized skills of map cataloger. Without her help and experience I would probably still be trying to master the basics of cataloging.

Please describe the nominee's communication skills. How do these skills attribute to his/her nomination for Outstanding Mentor/Trainer?

Janice clearly and logically teaches in a positive and motivational fashion. She was very patient and encouraged me to ask questions and be inquisitive as I learned.

Has the nominee used any innovative training/teaching methods? If so, what are they, and how have they affected you and/or others?

Janice provided relevant real world examples from which I could learn. She would demonstrate the more complex procedures then let me immediately use what I had learned while providing help in the background as needed. Learning by doing reinforces what is learned by watching. She wisely started with the basics and had a keen sense of when each step was mastered and when to move on to the next step so as to keep momentum but not overwhelm me with information.

What else do you think the ASSET Awards Committee should know about your nominee?

Janice has taught many librarians and staff local cataloging procedures for more than 20 years. During just the last six months of 2003 she instructed four librarians and several staff on local cataloging procedures. She is a tremendous asset to the Cataloging Department and the UGA Libraries.

How has the nominee demonstrated excellence in teaching, nurturing, or providing guidance to others? Please provide specific examples.

Sheila McAlister (Project Manager and Digital Metadata Coordinator for the DLG) seldom misses an opportunity to share her knowledge of digital library work with others in her profession, both at the UGA Libraries and within her profession at large. Over the past 12 months, Sheila has provided UGA Libraries personnel with workshops on digital project management, digital program development, metadata for digital projects, and Encoded Archival Description. The DLG found an opportunity to offer digital library internships for this summer, and Sheila has taken the lead in selecting and training two LIS graduate students who are learning a host of practical digitization skills that they will carry with them into their profession. Sheila has contributed her insights into digital library processes to other institutions and groups in the region involved in planning their own projects. She provided a well-attended daylong workshop for Georgia public library directors, held in Macon as a part of the Georgia HomePLACE initiative. Sheila provided a SOLINET workshop on metadata for librarians and archivists in Hampton, Virginia. She has contributed her expertise to the PASCAL consortium and to Clemson University in South Carolina and to the Panhandle Library Automation Network in Florida. In short, both by bringing professional development opportunities to the UGA Libraries and by disseminating knowledge outside of the university, Sheila McAlister has demonstrated a commitment to mentorship and training, as well as to the principle that library work requires a habit of continued learning.

How has the knowledge the nominee shared affected another person's or yours career?

Sheila's work in digital library training promotes the dissemination of new and important LIS skills.

Please describe the nominee's communication skills. How do these skills attribute to his/her nomination for Outstanding Mentor/Trainer?

Much of communicating effectively within a training setting is adequate preparation. Sheila is conscientious in this regard.

Has the nominee used any innovative training/teaching methods? If so, what are they, and how have they affected you and/or others?

Sheila uses instructional technologies to convey concepts. More importantly, she provides hands-on activities that give learners the opportunity to apply national standards using key digital library software applications. Last week, she filled the DLG's instructional lab with UGA employees who were getting practical experience creating EAD/XML documents.

What else do you think the ASSET Awards Committee should know about your nominee?

See statement in question 1.

How has the nominee demonstrated excellence in teaching, nurturing, or providing guidance to others? Please provide specific examples.

Betty's training skills became evident when she had to be gone for 10 days and her only staff member was suddenly out for emergency surgery.

Betty recruited several of the Science Staff to oversee small portions of her job as Document Delivery coordinator, giving each of us a brief overview and what needed to be done and always with the caveat that the student assistants would know what to do. We put on our confident faces and told her we could handle it and encouraged her to continue with her plans.

Well, she was right her student assistants really did know what they were doing. Countless times we would flounder as we attempted to keep up the paper/fax communication with ILL only to have one of her assistants say, "Oh, yes you do this or I did that for you". This is testament to her excellent training regimen with the 4 students who help out daily in the unit.

How has the knowledge the nominee shared affected another person's or yours career?

The implicit knowledge Betty had imparted to each of her student assistants meant they were able to work efficiently on their own in the absence of both staff members of the unit. It was not necessary for ILL to designate one of their staff to Science to cover Betty's responsibilities, making themselves short. It also made it easy for the staff who helped out at Science to fulfill the daily paper trail quickly and efficiently with little disruption to their own work.

Please describe the nominee's communication skills. How do these skills attribute to his/her nomination for Outstanding Mentor/Trainer?

Not having observed any of this training directly, it is hard to state what methods were used. I feel strongly that her quiet but determined approach has worked well. She also definitely leads by example, works very hard and covers all levels of the job.

Has the nominee used any innovative training/teaching methods? If so, what are they, and how have they effected you and/or others?

What I felt had worked in this case, was breaking the tasks into small segments and charging each student assistant with an area of responsibility, no matter how small. Consequently they all had a sense of responsibility to the task and also to the overall success of the unit in finding the correct material to fill requests in a timely manner.

What else do you think the ASSET Awards Committee should know about your nominee?

Betty is a quiet, efficient worker who is dedicated to the service of her job. She is an excellent liaison between Science Library, ILL and our branch libraries in particular. The rapport she has developed with the branch libraries' staff has led to a better understanding of the service required by the remote users at these research locations.