EXTRA MILE/ABOVE AND BEYOND AWARD:
This award recognizes a person or group frequently and consistently working outside normal expectations to make a difference within the Libraries, while maintaining quality service or outstanding production levels with a positive and professional attitude.
NOMINEES:
Nominee: Sarah Stamatkin
Department: Government Documents Processing
Testimonial: Sarah Stamatkin’s job description includes duties such
as student supervision and “projects to enhance physical and intellectual access to the U.S. and international documents collections”; this rather bland description does not begin to do Sarah’s actual work performance justice. Since early 2011, Sarah has served as de facto project manager for the Government Documents Processing long-term project to inventory and completely catalog the entire Federal documents collection. Under her direction, this project was finally able to move into its production phase by training student workers to do the initial inventory and barcoding of the collection. Sarah hires, trains and supervises up to 8 students to do fairly complex tasks in a short amount of time; the majority of their work is associated with the inventory project. To date significant progress has been made with the Federal documents collection in the Main Library; as of January of this year the project moved to the Science Library to begin work on its Federal documents collection. Thanks to Sarah’s efforts with the students as well as her managerial skills, Government Documents Processing was able to quickly move and set up the entire inventory project to Science in January and immediately get to work.
Sarah’s work on the inventory project has produced several related projects, all of which she identified and coordinated. In May of 2011 she worked with Susan Tuggle to transfer a portion of the Georgia documents collection that had already been digitized to the Repo. Later that summer, Sarah coordinated a project at the Repo to move all of the Federal documents to the second floor, which will not only allow for those items to be more easily identified and retrieved, but also allow more government documents to be housed there in the coming months and years. When planning for to move the inventory project to Science started last fall, Sarah suggested and coordinated the transfer of a number of less-used documents from that collection to the Repo. Once the Science inventory was underway, Sarah
turned her attention to the sorting and processing the 200 gift boxes that had accumulated there over the years; after 3 months the boxes she is down to 50 boxes and counting. And when it became obvious that the Science documents would need to be moved to the 4th floor
in anticipation of that building’s 2nd floor renovation, Sarah immediately started planning how to tie up the inventory project and start the move so it would be completed on time.
Quite simply, the inventory project would not have progressed at all if not for Sarah’s efforts. That she can effectively manage such a sprawling project with so many branches and in so many places while still staying on top of her regular duties is hugely impressive. The UGA Libraries one of the few Regional depositories in the country actively working to inventory and catalog its entire collection; we are certainly the only ones fortunate enough to have someone like Sarah managing our project.
Nominee: Donnie Summerlin
Department: DLG
Testimonial: I nominate Donnie Summerlin for Extra Mile/ Above and Beyond, with the full knowledge that he received this award last year.
This is because in 2012, Donnie has again proven to be an incredibly hard-working employee who has produced a considerable quantity of professional work, while also handling the mundane, unglamorous
and inconvenient aspects of managing students and digital project workflow with unflagging enthusiasm and good humor.
As the Digital Library of Georgia's Digital Conversion Manager, he continues to supervise a team of student workers and ensures the consistent and timely production of more than 100,000 pages of historic newspaper content. The South Georgia Historic Newspapers Archive went live in August of 2011, providing free, online access to
six newspaper titles and more than 81,000 newspaper pages, while
the Athens Historic Newspapers Archive was expanded to 77,000 newspaper pages this April. Donnie has also begun to supervise students with the digital conversion of historic Civil War-related documents for the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) Digitizing Historical Records grant partnership between DLG, Hargrett, and the Georgia Historical Society.
In addition to making the output of other publications accessible, Donnie has contributed a significant amount of his own. He has continued to maintain strong social media presence for the DLG by regularly writing blog articles that feature DLG collections and resources and organizing posts to the department's Facebook page. He serves the DLG and UGA Libraries both regionally and nationally with his professional writing skills by contributing articles to the Development department's local newsletter Beyond the Pages, to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, and to the NHPRC's blog. He also participates actively in other UGA Libraries and professional activities as an active member and officer of the Libraries Staff Association (LSA), where he has worked to pull together the Winter and Spring semester book sales. As an active member of the Society of Georgia Archivists, Donnie rounded up his service on the Scholarship committee at the end of 2011, and moderated a lively and engaged panel on social media at the 2011 Annual Meeting.
Did we mention that Donnie is also finishing up his MLIS degree at Valdosta State this summer? Because he is doing that too.
Donnie is a heavy lifter (both literally -and- figuratively, judging from the number of books he moved and sold at last week's LSA book sale). Although Donnie's efficiency and productivity are quantifiable, ASSET award nominations also provide us with the opportunity to recognize the cheerfulness and collegiality he brings to the office,
and note that these things are what make our department such a
great place to work. Donnie possesses the best possible combination of ambition, industriousness, and humility as a library and archives professional, and is also a top-notch representative of the service
and dedication that the UGA Libraries strives to provide its patrons.
Nominee: Mary Linnemann
Department: Hargrett Library
Testimonial: Mary Linnemann is the perfect candidate for the Extra Mile/Above and Beyond award. Since last year, Mary has successfully juggled three separate, yet equally important tasks that were
critical to the mission of the libraries and the move to a new facility.
- Mary helped tremendously in fabricating the exhibits for the Hargrett Galleries. She worked many, many long hours to scan items, create captions, print and participate in the installation.
- Mary maintained her work as the supervisor of imaging for the Hargrett Library by accepting reproduction requests, maintaining contact with patrons and performing a large volume of work in the capacity – all with a smile and a great attitude.
- Mary oversaw the packing and moving of the imaging lab to the new special collections libraries, which was a job in and of itself. Her responsibility for costly equipment meant coordinating times for company representatives to visit and set up the equipment in the new space.
In order to help her complete so many tasks successfully, Mary manages a small student army extremely well. She has an innate
talent for hiring good workers and supervises them very, very effectively to get the job done with humor and grace.
Nominee: Amber Prentiss
Department:Reference/MLC
Testimonial: Amber has become the go to person for technology solutions in the MLC. She championed acquiring funds for loaning
out audio-visual hardware to students, faculty, and staff through the Digital Media Lab, and she has worked tirelessly for a new CMS for
the MLC webpage. She has taken this same can do attitude and applied it to two years of service on FAB as chair and vice chair. Not one to rest on her accomplishments, Amber is already looking towards the future technological needs of the students in the MLC. I know she will continue to use her tenacity and indomitable spirit to continue to serve the needs of the students at UGA.
Nominee: Jamie Jedlicka
Department: Cataloging
Testimonial: I am pleased to nominate Ms. Jamie Jedlicka for the Extra Mile/Above and Beyond Award. Ms. Jedlicka transitioned to her
current position as Special Collections Cataloger from the Database Maintenance section of Cataloging. Coming into her position, Ms. Jedlicka built upon her existing knowledge and tackled cataloging of monographs (basic and complex copy) and serials cataloging. Not an easy task for any cataloger, however Ms. Jedlicka has handled everything in stride. She has a good eye for problems and isn’t afraid to ask “Why?”
Ms. Jedlicka did an extraordinary job working to get the special collections items ready to move. Flexible and willing to go above and beyond what was expected of her, Ms. Jedlicka managed to complete a significant number of transfers for the Georgia Room, in addition to working on some of the most challenging items (monographs and serials) in that collection. She continues to work with Skip Hulett to maintain the Georgia Room collections and make sure they are represented in the catalog properly.
Her work with the Richard B. Russell Library has also been exemplary. Ms. Jedlicka went through the entire Richard B. Russell office collection to make sure that not only were items transferred to the proper location, but that the records were complete and free of errors. She has a great eye for detail and an honest approach to her work. She has built a great working relationship with Kat Stein and the staff of the Russell Library and will be focusing on several other Russell Library projects in the future.
In addition, Ms. Jedlicka took the initiative to work with Marie Woods in Acquisitions to understand and resolve some of the complicated issues around some of the purchases in Special Collections. In transferring materials, Ms. Jedlicka consults with Ms. Woods if there is a question or problem with a linked order.
Most importantly, Ms. Jedlicka has worked consistently on becoming part of the Special Collections collective. She has attended meetings, training, workshops, and tours to help her get acquainted with the new building and the new software that they will be using. She has worked hard on building relationships with many of the staff members in the various special collections areas. Staff members can now view her as a resource for cataloging, and not just a representative from Cataloging.
It’s refreshing to have someone see a problem and want to confront it head-on before it gets worse. Ms. Jedlicka does just that. She builds working relationships and takes it upon herself to learn every aspect
of what she encounters. I am proud to have Ms. Jedlicka represent Cataloging. She is a true ASSET to the Libraries.
Nominee: Simon Hunt
Department: Cataloging Department
Testimonial: Although Simon works in the Cataloging Department and not for gifts, when Will needed help picking up materials for the
Russell Library, he cheerfully helped Will with the pickup and retrieval of materials from Atlanta. This is just ONE example of how helpful Simon is, often taking on a leadership role in the tasks he undertakes. He is well organized and able to offer suggestions to make the work more efficient. During the pickup of Tifton withdrawn materials (1500+ items), Simon coordinated the work of everyone ensuring that boxes were kept in order, helped to motivate the group by keeping us apprised of how many boxes were left to unpack, as well as helping with unboxing and shelving material so that we could finish.
Everything Simon does is to the best of his ability and always with a cheerful attitude.