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:

Mary Miller

I am nominating Mary Miller for her continued dedication to the Peabody Awards Collection and as a Best Supporting Player to the Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection.

Mary helps out every year at the Peabody Awards office when the entry deadline approaches helping unpack and number the entries so they can be viewed as soon as possible by the judges. This is not something she has to do, she chooses to do it every year. Mary has led the way in getting Peabody Awards entries cataloged into the database and linking digitized content to the records. She has recently worked with Dave Falke in Systems in the creation of an "instantiation database" that is being used to track every instance of a program in the collection. This can get very complicated when you have physical carriers and digital carriers of content. This has been a great solution to the problem of tracking content in that collection. We plan on using that model when cataloging other collections.

Mary has also cataloged and trained her student staff to add information to cataloging records. This means of the 70 years of Peabody Awards content, the database is now missing only 1 year of television and only 40 years of radio content. This is a huge change from when we started this project in 2002 when we had approximately 500 records in the collection accessible. Now we have over 45,000. We also have digital files viewable on campus linked to over 2000 of these records which feature television and radio content.

Mary brings her best to her job every day, is always willing to accept more responsibility, to problem solve, and work with her colleagues to bring the best of the Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection forward.

Danny Bridges

Danny is a practitioner of a “do unto others” positive outlook. He is dependable without fail and brings the best of himself to the workplace every day. His flexibility and cooperation are evident as he volunteers to complete or assist with any task in the Access Services Department at Main or Science – and there have been plenty with vacant and eliminated staff positions. Danny definitely enjoys his work and that in turn promotes a positive workplace.

John Ergle and Peggy Ayers

Jay and Peggy are two of the most friendly and helpful staff members at Main. Their flexibility and enthusiasm is unmatched. Any request for assistance with copiers is met with a willingness to help, even when the problem does not necessarily come under their purview. When a problem arises in the reference room or other part of the library, you can call copy services knowing that somebody will be available to help almost immediately. Jay and Peggy exemplify the spirit of going above and beyond, and through it all, they both maintain a cheerful attitude in the face of sticky technical problems and stressed out students.

Will Langford and Jeanette Morgan

I heartily nominate Will Langford and Jeanette Morgan for the Best Supporting Player(s) Award for 2011. Together they have logged thousands of miles on the road, loaded tons of books (literally) and sorted through hundreds of thousands of titles to find what material we can use here at UGA and what can be useful to other institutions (including prisons). Will and Jeanette work many long days in all kinds of weather to perform this valuable service and consistently exude a demeanor of cheerfulness no matter the circumstance.

On top of the variables that impact their job (as listed above: number of books, location of the pick up, weather, number of hours on the job), they are required to represent the library to the public. Their commitment to service means that they take their collective duty as liaisons for the library seriously and I have witnessed their interactions with donors numerous times. Both Will and Jeanette are always convivial, respectful and unfailingly polite, whether the donor has given UGALibs 25 books or 2,500.

They are always willing to step up and help other departments with their needs. They have been a vital part of Development for years by helping with events. They also make trips for other departments that need items picked up, such as the Media Archives and the Russell Library. They treat archival papers, photographs, and artifacts (among other items) as well as or even better than companies who are paid much more money to move similar items. Their care in loading and wrapping then transporting these items is a wonderful asset to the special collections departments here.

No matter the circumstance, Will and Jeanette are always around to lend helping hands and jump in where needed. Their combined work ethics plus their always-positive attitude come together to create a stellar team.

Daron Mitchell

Got a question about why a patron's record has information you can't decipher? Wonder how to correct a problem with an item for circulation? Daron is your go-to person. Her unfailing good humor, knowledge and grace when dealing with the ins and out of the GIL client for Circulation make her a Godsend to her co-workers. She is not only willing to work with coworkers to solve problems, she will patiently answer you, even if, just perhaps, you've asked this question before. Because of this, colleagues can fearlessly approach her. She will spend the time necessary to train you and never makes the beneficiary feel like a burden. Her willingness to lend a hand often goes unnoticed, but if you ever need her help, you're more than grateful for it! And if she doesn't know the answer, you probably don't even need it.....

Emily Giles

Emily is always willing to pitch in whatever way imaginable. In addition to supervising and training both staff and student workers, she has quietly absorbed the work of vacant positions in her Unit, taking on a considerable workload. Most people do not realize the vast quantity of work that Emily does. She works with Science Library, Reference, Binding, ILL, Access Services and Shelving staff assisting them when they find problems or have questions about records they find in the catalog, in addition to coordinating transfers to the stacks and Repo. Besides working directly with a wide variety of staff every day, she also does a significant portion of maintenance (record editing) work every day. Emily IS the spirit of cooperation and her flexibility and willingness to take on extra duties is a true asset to the Libraries.

Melissa Bush

Melissa has been working quietly and ever-so diligently behind the scenes at Hargrett for years. She is always the first one here, and usually the last one out. Her attitude is always that of someone cheerful and ready and willing to help anyone with anything, at any time- from public services to exhibits to hunting down collections to physically moving and cleaning collections. She solves problems on a regular basis, is a go-to person for questions. She is also thoughtful and meticulous in her work- and has done excellent processing work with archival collections with very little guidance. In fact, a great majority of the availability of Hargrett's manuscripts collections is due to Melissa's tireless efforts at arranging and describing our materials- she really deserves some recognition.

As far as positive interactions and boosting morale, Melissa is the positive example of the phrase, "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." She's been quietly supporting all the folks here at Hargrett and the Libraries as a whole with her daily efforts, and is a major contributor to the positive, effective resolution of the various conundrums we encounter every day. Her enthusiasm is evident in her total dedication and constant focus, and there is no one more cooperative than Melissa- she just wants to help to make it better, is smart about how she approaches things, and will do anything she is asked to towards the common good. I cannot recommend her enough for this award.