Other Duties as Assigned Award
This recognizes a person (s) who is ready and willing to assume additional duties or responsibilities. Examples include:
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Dealing with a unique or emergency situation,
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Effectively juggling the additional duties and multiple priorities with normal job responsibilities,
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Helping to facilitate change, encouraging others to adapt to the changing situations, and maintaining a positive attitude,
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Demonstrating flexibility in thought or action.
Trevor Diamond, ILL
Trevor is quite occupied with his various office duties, which he does efficiently. He also offers his help to his colleagues with their duties. I am particularly grateful to him in giving me a very helpful hand in catching up with my work during a period of extrenuating circumstances.
Trevor is also very computer literate and made macros in my computer to speed up the look-ups for article and loan requests.
I deeply recommend him for a nomination.
Ginny Feher, ILL
I would like to nominate Ginny Feher for the Other Duties as Assigned Award. Ginny has been an active member of the Web Advisory Group (WAG) for several years, serving as the group’s Graphics Coordinator. She has taken on a range of projects in this capacity, in addition to her Interlibrary Loan duties, sometimes working on WAG projects in her own time.
Ginny has contributed enthusiastically to all aspects of web design. One of the most time-consuming, but also most useful, tasks in redesigning web pages or sites is usability testing. Ginny has worked with others to conduct usability tests, gleaning helpful information about the structure and design of our site, communicating that information clearly to the rest of WAG, and making cooperative design decisions based on the test results.
Where Ginny’s contribution is most evident, however, is in the professional, attractive look of the site in recent years, as she has applied her experience and training as an artist to the visual design of our home page and departmental pages. She understands the way that the screen layout leads the user’s eye, how to combine different graphical aspects to prioritize parts of the screen, and how to use color to organize a page and make it visually appealing to our users. These are all important issues as we compete with the numerous commercial sites with which our students and other users are familiar, and try to make a large amount of information accessible in a way that is not overwhelming.
Ginny is always keen to help to improve our web offerings, even contributing to projects beyond our home page and departmental pages. For example, once we had decided we wanted to restructure the Research Guide and redesign its home page, Ginny created an attractive, sharp interface for it. Ginny has also taken on other aspects of web page creation, beyond visual design. She has worked hard to increase her knowledge of HTML and CSS, and recently wrote the coding for our new secondary pages, along with creating the visual design itself. Without Ginny Feher, our web site would be a lot less visually attractive and less functional, and I would like to see her receive this award in recognition of her major, ongoing contribution.
Gilbert Head, Hargrett
Perhaps inside of Gilbert Head there is a commercial sector entrepreneur trapped in a public sector employee? Beyond his duties in the Hargrett Library, Gilbert has routinely gone beyond in work with staff concerns. In recent years this has taken the form of conducting the LSA fundraising books sales. This has made for a solvent Libraries Staff Association and, in recent years, has allowed the staff to support many worthy causes, nationally and locally. While these monies come from the generous donations and helpless compulsive purchases of many staff, it is Gilbert who gathers materials between sales, directs all efforts connected with the sale and contributes the ballyhoo and sales expertise necessary to "move those books."
In a similar "other duties" fund-raising role, Gilbert organizes and conducts the annual fund raising auction for the Society of Georgia Archivists' scholarship committee. This work provides the entertainment at SGA receptions, but - more importantly - provides funding to help our staff and recipients at other institutions to attend SGA and SAA events. As a dedicated long-term staff member, Gilbert makes this important investment in his profession.
I should add that Gilbert also gladly agrees to "suit up" in his civil-war era uniform, seen by many citizens at the annual exhibition of the Confederate Constitution, and appear before local civic groups when invited. They may think they are going to hear about the war, but they inevitably also hear an entertaining and informative presentation on the importance of archives and the valuable role the Libraries play in preserving our country's history. Unlike the other "extra duties" roles, Gilbert does not get to handle money in these visits. While they do not address the "inner entrepreneur", we hope he at least gets some good chicken dinner in conjunction with his missionary work for the Libraries.
Mandy Mastrovita, DLG
Mandy Mastrovita was recently called upon to organize equipment and software training for out-of-town partners. Originally, the training was supposed to take place in late May. However, there was a sudden change of plan, forcing her to organize the training about a month in advance. In the face of multiple deadlines, Mandy effectively coordinated the training session with DLG staff and provided a carefully designed tutorial that will serve as an example for future projects. Faced with incredible time pressure and deadlines, Mandy remained a pleasure to work with.
June Bellew, Bobby Bowden, Margaret Hale and Becky Wortham
Accounting and Purchasing, Business Services, Administration, and Human Resources
In August 2006, Libraries Human Resources lost long-term employee Teresa Taylor to an on campus promotional opportunity. For the department and for the Libraries, this was a big loss in skill, competence and organizational memory.
The very general tasks expected of this position included:
• Generating all employee personnel reports and budget amendments and reconciling vouchers and status reports and generating statistical comparison reports (making sure all employees got paid!)
• Managing the Libraries’ various endowment accounts (e.g., accounts set up from donor gifts) and restricted accounts (e.g., accounts developed for grant award) and income account by generating purchase orders, depositing monetary gifts, reconciling status reports, maintaining records, processing check requests and monitoring accounts.
• Managing the Libraries Travel budgets within these accounts.
• Projecting budget needs and generating proposals, making purchases for supplies and equipment from those various accounts and problem solving in areas of human resources and accounting.
Because of her work in Libraries HR, Teresa also brought a solid knowledge of the recruitment process and could pinch hit and problem solve in those areas when needed.
After Teresa’s departure those in Administration, Administrative Services, Business Services, and Libraries HR got together to discuss all the various pieces of the position and how we needed to fill it. Although it involved the higher levels of accounting work, June Bellew, Bobby Bowden, Margaret Hall and Becky Wortham were eager to examine the current and interrelated workflows of the areas to see what responsibilities they could incorporate into their own work. They were all very cognizant of the stresses this might place on them for getting their own work done, for learning – in some cases – some very new skills, and for not being able to know or communicate the “right answers” to people who had that expectation.
Although this was a huge change in our staffing and subsequent workflows, June, Bobby, Margaret and Becky should be proud that they took on these additional duties and responsibilities, have become much more acquainted with the systems and workflows, and have gained new knowledge and abilities.
Each of them has somehow been able to effectively juggle the additional duties and multiple priorities with their normal job responsibilities. They have helped those staff and campus colleagues understand the changes, and throughout it all have maintained enthusiasm and even excitement for the change.
It is a testament to June, Bobby, Margaret, and Becky's interest, commitment, and desire to always give 150% that has made this work. Their work is the embodiment of the phrase “other duties as assigned”.
Mike Wages, Systems
Although we have tethered him to the misery of our constant upgrades, "we need administrator privileges" requests, technical snafus, and choking printers, Mike Wages PATIENTLY helps sort those things out for the folks in our department, always responding in a timely manner. He goes the extra mile by keeping on the lookout for things that we need, keeping us updated on the quirks of our particular versions of software, and, when time allows, by giving us something to laugh at and think about after he has left. He is always patient and professional, but his good nature & sense of humor are a bonus that we all look forward to seeing when we send in our Help Desk requests.
Mike Parrish, Systems
Mike Parrish is ALWAYS pleasant, even on days when we have complicated problems that force us to have to keep bothering him. He never speaks down to any of us, or chides us for (perceived or actual) incompetence. We are always working with programs that have some kind of special licensing or technical glitches, and he very PATIENTLY helps sort those things out for the people in our department who depend upon Tech Support to resolve these problems for us. He is always helpful and pleasant, responds in a timely manner, and addresses our problems politely, professionally, and will follow up to make certain that things have continued to run smoothly.
Abby Adams, Russell
From the Russell with Love, a nomination for Abby Adams for the Other Duties as Assigned Award
Abby Adams assumed a host of other duties as Russell Library managed without two key positions for most of the year. She significantly contributed to planning associated with a period of significant staff vacancy. She developed her communication skills more fully and assumed the role of meeting facilitator for Russell staff meetings. In the process, she began to act with greater assertiveness and independence by taking a leadership role more regularly.
Another major responsibility Abby assumed was that of supervising student assistants. She has managed the work plan and supervision of three students in stellar fashion. These students were all employed in the processing unit in the past, not Abby s unit area, yet she always had tasks for them to complete, oversaw the quality of their work with great care, and served as a sturdy mentor. She relieved a great burden from other staff by taking on this work as well as a project to survey and revise finding aids and to identify suitable work for students.
Additionally, Abby began inventorying the Russell Library s electronic records and researching issues related to ensuring their preservation. She is now representing the Russell Library on the Research Central Web Committee. She continues to seek training that builds her expertise and knowledge base and makes her an even greater asset to the department. Her participation in several continuing archival education workshops as well as the two-week-long Georgia Archives Institute reflects her commitment to the Russell Library and to the profession.
Abby has increased her involvement professionally and was elected to serve on the Society of American Archivists Reference Access and Outreach Steering Committee and was appointed to serve as the web editor for the Society of Georgia Archivists (SGA). She has been an active member of the SGA membership committee and helped to develop and administer a major survey of the society's membership.
Abby Adams made the transition this year from being an employee who carried out instructions or projects effectively to becoming one who takes ownership in the Russell Library s goals and interests by perceiving needs in the department and by developing strategies for innovation to expand or refine service. Her independence, initiative, and diligence are signal strengths that make her an integral part of the Access and Outreach Unit and the Russell Library as a whole. Her commitment to the archival profession through her work for the Society of Georgia Archivists and the Society of American Archivists and through her continuing educational development as a Masters of Library and Information Studies candidate is unquestionable. The Russell staff recognizes their good fortune to have Abby Adams as a colleague. Diamonds are Forever!!