EXCELLENCE IN SERVICE:

This award recognizes creativity, innovation, and dedication in providing service to our users through both our public service points and outreach to infrequent or non library users. It is awarded to an individual or group for creating, developing, or implementing an idea or procedure that noticeably improves overall service to our users and helps the Libraries fulfill its mission to "uphold service to the patron both on and off campus as the ultimate goal of the Libraries."

NOMINEES:

Sheila Devaney

Testimonial #1: To say that Sheila Devaney has thrown herself into her work as Business & Data Services Reference Librarian over the past few years would be an understatement. Terry College students and faculty can be demanding, and they expect immediate assistance with their often-complex research. Sheila, with her patient and friendly demeanor and strong service ethic, is the ideal person to provide reference service for business researchers.

Upon starting her job, Sheila began offering office hours in Terry each week, sending regular email updates to business faculty and students, and teaching a large number of instruction sessions each semester. She also works a weekly shift at the Science Reference desk in order to keep up with related fields on South Campus such as Housing & Consumer Economics and Agricultural Economics. Sheila’s largest time commitment, though, comes from her many, many individual reference conferences. Business students generally prefer to meet one-on-one with a librarian since that’s the most efficient way for them to get help with their research projects. Sheila took note of this and encourages students to contact her for personal attention. As her reputation with business students increases, so does her workload. Sheila met with nearly a hundred individuals for research consultations this past year; many of these consultations lasted an hour or more. During peak times of the semester, those of us in Main Reference watch as Sheila wears a tread in the carpet between her own desk and the Reference Desk. As soon as one student leaves Sheila’s desk, the next one is waiting to meet her down at the Reference Desk. Sheila is flexible and is always at the ready to help a business student in despair over a last-minute research snag. Sheila is also helpful to her fellow reference librarians. When we get those difficult questions about data sets or industry ratios, she’ll come to the reference desk to save us. Sheila makes service a priority. She makes it clear that her purpose here is to help patrons, and she organizes the rest of her workload so that students and faculty come first.

Testimonial #2: I would like to nominate Sheila Devaney for Excellence in Service. As the Data Services & Business Reference Librarian, Sheila has become the go-to person for Terry College faculty and students for all of their information needs. Of all the departments across campus, it would be hard to find many that are more demanding than the departments that make up the business school. The faculty and many of the students are used to, and expect, their needs to be met fully and promptly.

Sharing an office with Sheila, I have become aware of the large number of requests she receives for one-on-one reference consultations and help via email with searches for specific information and data. Sheila always handles these requests with courtesy and aplomb, greeting the faculty and students with enthusiasm and a desire to help them, even when I know she is inundated with requests, bibliographic instruction sessions and other duties. In addition, Sheila has instigated office hours over at the business school twice a week, so that her faculty and students can drop by for assistance with whatever information need they have.

The information sources that Sheila deals with in terms of business information, and especially data sets, are ones that often require time and persistence to learn and become accustomed to using. Some of these are things that many Reference librarians use very infrequently. Not only has Sheila familiarized herself with these resources quite quickly, but she has also become our go-to person for help when we get stuck. Sheila has also taken advantage of the Library a la Carte software that the Reference Department now uses for course and subject guides. She was among the first to adopt this, and has made many detailed and helpful guides, which have proven to be useful not only to patrons, but to Reference librarians too.

In closing, I believe Sheila Devaney would be a very worthy recipient of the award for Excellence in Service, as this is truly the focus of her work on a daily basis.

Craig Breaden and Christian Lopez

Through initiative, creativity, and many hours of hard work, Craig Breaden and Christian Lopez have established a successful and innovative oral history program that has captured a valuable piece of Georgia’s modern history and made it accessible to the widest possible audience. In doing so, Craig and Christian have raised the profile of the Russell Library and the UGA libraries with stakeholders and communities across the state.

Reflections of Georgia Politics, is the cornerstone of the Russell’s Oral History Program. Craig Breaden established this program with Bob Short, a long time politico with an amazing network of people connected to Georgia politics who was working with Young Harris College on a small-scale program of interviews. Craig met Bob in the process of collecting Bob’s media materials that date from the 1950s. The project grew tremendously and Christian Lopez joined the Russell staff in July 2009 to assist with managing the program. The oral histories produced from this project are an outstanding research resource. To date the project has over 120 interviews available to view from the Russell Library Web site. Through an innovative partnership with Young Harris College, Craig garnered a donation of $15,000 toward interview transcription. The unit raised an additional $6,450 from new contributors for the Reflections series. The interviews have proven an excellent platform for expanding knowledge about the Russell and its programs, cultivating stakeholders, identifying prospective collections, and improving donor relations. In 2010, the Russell Library hosted a luncheon for all the participants in the Reflections project and over one hundred people (including a former governor and three first ladies, state legislators and other officials) attended. The event highlight was unveiling of the complete streaming videos on iTunesU at UGA via the Russell web site. Without exception, these men and women all expressed profound pleasure and gratitude for the project and for the professional and kind manner in which Craig and Christian have comported themselves. It is fair to conclude that the Richard B. Russell Library is the center of oral history production within the UGA Libraries, if not university wide.

Reflections is just one of many initiatives that Craig and Christian manage in the Media and Oral History Unit. Producing new interviews is really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to their activities. Good oral history projects must include commitment to managing the preservation and the access to the information. This commitment requires constant attention to solving technical challenges, innovative strategies for funding the work, which is expensive, and unflagging patience and energy for what is labor-intensive complex work with the added challenge of nurturing development and donor relations. Craig and Christian together have more than fulfilled these requirements.

Jermaine King

I would like nominate Jermaine King who is in charge of the Media and Microforms Desk at the Main Library. I can't say enough about how impressed I am by Jermaine's leadership and quest to improve that area on a regular basis. Jermaine started with us in July 2008 and was instrumental in the creation of the current Media and Microforms Desk space which opened in January 2009. Jermaine:

• was instrumental in getting the Media Desk on the GIL check-out system. This has vastly improved how we deliver content to faculty, staff, and students;
• has let users of the Peabody Awards Collection know that content from that collection can be digitized and accessed on-line and viewed while on campus;
• has replaced all the equipment used in the area and brought a TV behind the desk to attract more users to the space;
• has slowly but surely worked with the Cataloging Department on getting previously uncataloged items cataloged and put in GIL;
• has helped in the creation of a browsing system through GIL for genres, countries, etc. in any content from the purchased collection;
• has created a FaceBook page and Twitter account to alert users about new items available for check-out; and
• he and his staff have helped users with microforms, which is a new addition to the responsibilities of the media desk staff.

Shannon Bennett

In a building that sees an average of more than ten thousand visitors each day, you can imagine that keeping up with trash is a big issue. This year, Shannon worked with the Office of Sustainability on a new recycling program designed to improve our trash disposal system and contribute less to the landfill. Organizing the project with the Office of Sustainability and Physical Plant, Shannon assisted in placing more than 200 stations each with three bins for plastic, paper, and trash. The result of our waste audit this year was impressive. In 2009, the MLC produced 750 lbs of trash in one day. Of that, roughly 55% was recyclable. This year, the MLC produced 260 lbs of trash (34%) and of that 34%, only 8% was recyclable. This means that people are putting trash in the proper containers and less into the landfill. Shannon's leadership on this project has resulted in a big positive impact, making the MLC a "greener" place and serving as a successful model for other buildings on campus.

Janice Brown, Nancy Brown, Robin Fay, Kelly Holt, Neil Hughes, Jenifer Marquardt and Beth Thornton - Cataloging Section Heads

The Cataloging Department's Section Heads are the ones that make the department's accomplishments possible. Over many years, I have seen them grow into a group that is truly collaborative, resolving problems together and sharing workloads created by the numerous special projects requested of the Department.

The past two years have been especially busy as Cataloging has committed itself to helping, in every way possible, facilitate the move of the Libraries' special collections areas into their new building. By providing adequate representation of their materials in GIL and OCLC, better access to the collections is assured and patrons will realize the wide variety and depth of material available for their use.

While this kind of collaboration is expected, the last two years have been particularly impressive. Each Section Head has had the opportunity to work with other departments in the planning and execution of special projects. Additionally, the Section Heads had to plan workflows within Cataloging, as material involved in these projects often falls into more than one section's area of expertise.

Working with the diverse areas of the Hargrett Library, the Georgia Room, the DLG, the Russell Library, and the Media Archives has been interesting and challenging, not only for Section Heads, but for all the staff in Cataloging. Not normally material the department catalogs (with the exception of the Georgia Room material), learning new formats, writing procedures, and planning with the various areas was a project in itself. However, they never once said it's too much, we can't do it. Instead they put their heads together, adjusted priorities, and planned workflows.

I consider their accomplishments very impressive and worthy of this asset award. This is especially so when one considers that Section Heads not only have to oversee the special collections projects, but the cataloging of all new acquisitions as well, along with facing the everyday challenges of providing access and maintenance to the wide variety of library materials.

Becky Wortham

Becky Wortham is a true asset to the UGA Libraries. I have had the pleasure of working with her on numerous projects that require tremendous attention to detail, patience, flexibility, and a sense of humor. Becky manages all the grant accounts for our department and as such has to keep track of expenditures, make purchases, interpret rules and regulations, and perhaps most importantly translate the world of UGA grants and accounting for novices like me! In many instances we have wanted to do things with resources that are not typical or require special approval and she has been a wonderful and patient ally in figuring out how to navigate through red tape. Of course, Becky also does so much more for we in the Russell and the Libraries as a whole. She is one busy woman, yet she is never anything but pleasant and convivial. In an environment such as the University Libraries and the University as a whole where many of our interactions and customers are internal, Becky is a model leader for excellence in service!