BEST SUPPORTING PLAYER:
This award recognizes a person who remains steadfast in commitment to the Libraries' mission, contributes consistently to achieving departmental goals, and fosters esprit de corps among colleagues.
NOMINEES:
John Prechtel
John not only manages the Business & Economics collections for the Libraries, he is also our go-to person for difficult census questions and data queries. Also, if there is an incredibly difficult government documents question you can't answer, you can be assured that John has been called in to help. John always drops whatever he is working on to come down to the Reference desk and work through the "stumper." John also has taught 50 instruction classes this year as well as been one of the first folks in Reference to adopt Libraries ala Carte software to customize web pages and handouts for these 50 instruction classes. Always consistent in his willingness to help us all out and always with a smile on his face.
Amber Prentiss
Amber is enthusiastic about her work and takes it very seriously, but with the utmost good humor and liveliness.
- She's always very concerned about finding a better way to do things. As web editor for the MLC pages, she's been investigating the best way to streamline updates.
- She has an exemplary spirit of cooperation, and involves her colleagues in projects. She has recently come up with the idea for a series of workshops -- a social science "boot camp" -- that would involve several other librarians.
- Amber is always flexible and ready to help someone out with a shift swap, help carrying materials to an event, or even an offer to drive a colleague somewhere. She takes an interest in the ongoing projects of others. These little things do much to help the morale of colleagues and departmental spirit.
Eric Rose
Eric has taken on responsibility for many extra projects following the departure of several staff members from the Database Maintenance section. He has begun to handle the bulk of location transfers as well as assisting with the Medium Rare project. Rather than complaining about these extra duties, he welcomes the opportunity to learn more about the workings of the Cataloging module, and is glad to assist with any and all projects.
For all these reasons, I am nominating him for the Best Supporting Player award.
Lisa Storey
I'm writing to recognize Lisa Storey. For several years she has been coming over to serials cataloging two hours every morning. She has been a great help to us, almost single-handedly cataloging all of the American Periodicals Series online titles. She is always willing to help in any way she can, and she is so good-natured about it.
Technically she is Acquisitions and Serials Services staff, but to us, she is definitely a member of serials cataloging. We appreciate her.
Donnie Summerlin
Since joining the DLG in 2007, Donnie Summerlin has been responsible for the conversion of over 200,000 pages of microfilmed newspapers into databases that can be searched and viewed online. This year the Atlanta Historic Newspapers Archive and the Southern Israelite debuted, bringing the total number of Georgia Historic Newspapers databases that have been launched under his guidance to five. The page count and number of sites completed is accomplishment enough; what makes this more impressive is that the process for doing this includes over ten transformative steps per page, six different intermediary file types, and multiple passes for revision and quality control. Managing a workflow so complicated is a tremendous challenge that requires diligence, patience, and the ability to multitask effectively. All that, mind you, before you get to the managerial skills required to coordinate the efforts of the student workers responsible for much of the page-by-page image editing labor that goes into these sites.
Watching this project evolve through trial and error from its early stages, I've become convinced that it takes something beyond the stated requirements of the project to make this all work: A Donnie Summerlin. Fortunately for us, we managed to get one. Donnie keeps the conversion process running smoothly and supervises the tremendous labors of our department's student workers with patience and understanding. His efforts ensure that our users are able to enjoy access to high quality historical materials that would otherwise be out of the reach of many. I won't go on about what an excellent problem solver he is or how he is able to adapt our database template and process to the particular needs of the title at hand, but trust me; he does all that, too. Even with all of the technical and managerial skills Donnie brings to his work, the thing that impresses me the most every day that I get to work with Donnie is what a good humored, pleasant person he is. Despite the inevitable frustrations of the process he manages, I have never seen him lose his cool, treat anyone in a discourteous or unfriendly manner, or seem anything less than completely committed to the task at hand. I feel very lucky to have him as a co-worker, and our department and our Library would be much the less without him.
Barb Trevena
Barb is a constant in the Science Library Reference Unit: supportive, cooperative, flexible, and fosters positive interactions within and outside the unit. She has incredible skills in the searching of government publications in any format and we call her our "Gov Docs Queen" because, if we can't find it, she usually can!!
Barb is excellent on the Reference Desk and is able to tackle any question, regardless of topic, and is tireless in her searching for articles, books and on-line resources for patrons no matter student, staff, faculty or a man off the street. The service is the same for everyone, as thorough as possible. At the same time she is willing to seek assistance on topics where she does get stumped, which isn't often.
Barb is a team player, always willing to step in and fill a slot on the desk; adapt her schedule to meet a colleague's needs, even if it is to her disadvantage; take the extra steps to ensure a user gets what they need; or help out at the last minute with a project, training or whatever.
On top of all that Barb is a great cook and we love it when she bakes and shares her goodies with us, which is often!!
She is definitely an unsung hero who comes to work everyday with enthusiasm, does a great job, makes everyone smile, and we don't thank her enough.
Thank you Barb for all that you do!!