OTHER DUTIES AS ASSIGNED AWARD:
This award recognizes a person or group demonstrating willingness to assume additional duties or responsibilities.
NOMINEES:
Esther Giezendanner
I would like to take this opportunity to nominate Esther Giezendanner for the Other Duties as Assigned Award. It's amazing to look at all the things that Esther has juggled, completed, and been involved in this year, in addition to her normal duties.
Esther's job performance is exemplary. She manages to deal with some of the oldest, ugliest items that come through our section and still maintains a positive attitude. She never shies away from new projects, formats, or challenges.
Esther has become a main contributor with all of the Hargrett Cataloging Projects. She began working with Donnie Summerlin (DLG) to help research and fill in gaps for some of the Hargrett Manuscripts. Esther and Donnie's efforts allowed the Monographs Original Cataloging section to catalog these collections and describe some of the unique and historical items that the Hargrett Library owns. These records are now in OCLC, GIL, and a public database on the Hargrett website that will enable researchers to locate and explore some of the items that influenced history.
Esther has also devoted a considerable amount of her time to the De Renne Collection. Not only in helping to catalog the Wymberley Jones De Renne Georgia Library collection, but also in the planning and the mechanics of getting this collection cataloged. This collection is the cornerstone of the Hargrett Library and, up until now, has been invisible to most researchers. Through the efforts of Esther and the other librarians working on the project, these books are being exposed not only for their historical value, but also their significance in the shaping of the state of Georgia.
In addition to everything she does professionally, Esther is working on a degree in Nutrition at the University of Georgia and serves as a court appointed advocate for the Athens-Oconee CASA Program. Plus, when she has a spare 30 minutes, she might whip up a cake or maybe a pear tart from scratch.
With her positive and friendly demeanor, Esther has created and maintained constructive working relationships with many departments in the UGA Libraries. She has balanced her duties with active participation in several committees and activities, special projects, class work, community service, and a life outside of work. Esther takes other duties as assigned to a whole new level.
Kelly Holt
We would like to nominate Kelly Holt for the Other Duties as Assigned Award. Kelly's regular job duties include cataloging of monographic materials in various formats, supervising 2.5 FTE, and participating in the departmental decision process. In addition to these responsibilities, Kelly has become the go-to person for cataloging and training projects for many other departments. For many years, she has cataloged Georgia government documents in addition to her other duties, but recently she has taken on other projects, specifically in relation to the move to the new Special Collections building. In order to help prepare the Hargrett Library for the move, Kelly has led the cataloging of the Hargrett Manuscript Collection. First, Kelly met with representatives from Hargrett and DLG to determine the workflow of the project. This included writing procedures for the Monographs Original Cataloging unit and training three catalogers who were unfamiliar with collection-level cataloging techniques. As the project got underway, Kelly cataloged manuscript collections and served as the point-person for questions both from her own employees and from her contacts in Hargrett and DLG. Kelly continues to serve in these capacities.
Another project that has come up as a result of the impending move to the new Special Collections building is the cataloging of the De Renne materials, which constitute the founding collection of the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library. As with the Hargrett Manuscript project, Kelly met with representatives from Hargrett to establish workflow and cataloging procedures for the project and trained two catalogers to work with the materials. The project is now underway, and Kelly devotes ten hours weekly to cataloging De Renne books in addition to her regular job duties.
Besides the Hargrett Manuscript and De Renne projects, Kelly also catalogs materials for the Draper collection, the Russell Library, and the Media Archives. No matter how many projects pop up on the horizon, Kelly remains cheerful and dedicated to providing the highest possible level of service to the UGA Libraries.
Kelly also provides training to colleagues outside of her department. Since the beginning of the year, she has been working with Hargrett Library staff to update in-house cataloging practices in preparation for the impending move to the new building. Kelly also possesses a background in government documents that has allowed her to collaborate with members of that department to revise cataloging workflows.
Kelly not only excels at her assigned duties, but she has energetically taken on considerable additional duties outside of her role as Head of Monographs Original Cataloging. She is known as a go-to person who somehow always finds time to tackle special projects or to assist colleagues with questions and issues related to cataloging. She clearly deserves to be recognized for her enthusiasm to take on other duties as assigned.
Jamie Jedlicka
Despite having her hands full with her regular job duties, Jamie routinely assists the rest of the Database Maintenance section in completing the special projects that come our way. The amount of work she does in the course of her ordinary work is prodigious, and she remains available to help sort out issues related to Georgia Room books even when DBM has time-sensitive projects on hand.
Because of her ability to incorporate DBM's various projects into her regular job duties, I am nominating her for the Other Duties as Assigned award.
Kristin Nielsen
Kristin assumed the role of Interim Department Head, Reference Department in May 2009 when Susan Curtis retired. While maintaining her duties as the subject specialist for English, Theatre & Film Studies and Comparative Literature, she now also has twenty-two people to advise, manage and supervise. She also has many more meetings and committee work than she previously had in her already busy schedule. Additionally, she also purchases materials for the collections in Journalism, Speech Communication and the Reading for Pleasure collection. She juggles all these duties with a wonderful demeanor. For instance, she can lead a meeting calmly and fairly while injecting the right sense of humor when needed. Trust me, that is not an easy task when managing so many opinionated Reference folks.