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2008 Annual CLA Awards
Congratulations to all who were honored with Awards and Scholarships this year for CLA. The Awards and Scholarships were presented at the Annual Awards Dinner on Friday, November 14, 2008 during the 110th Annual Conference in San Jose.
President's Award Winner
Donna Bero, Friends of the San Francisco Public Library
Donna Bero, Executive Director of the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library, is the recipient of the CLA President's Award for her passionate and visionary work in promotion of library services. During her tenure with the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library-which began in January 2005-that organization has raised $10.5 million, $6.6 million of which will support a 16 million dollar campaign to furnish and equip 24 new and renovated libraries as part of San Francisco's Branch Library Improvement Program. Donna's leadership was decisive in the successful campaign in 2007 that safeguarded library funding through a property tax set aside for the next 15 years. And her collaborative style has strengthened the Friends' partnerships with the San Francisco Public Library, the City of San Francisco, and many public, private, and non-profit organizations in San Francisco.
Donna's influence has extended far beyond San Francisco to help libraries and library advocates across the state and nation. She is generous in offering her time and creativity in supporting the work of Friends groups in other communities, including Berkeley and San Diego. Under her direction, the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library hosted the Libraries of the Future conference in July 2006 and she commissioned a library value study that could be used by other libraries throughout the state and nation. She has been participated in various projects of the California Library Association, and has lobbied for library support with legislators in Sacramento and Washington.
Member of the Year Winner
Carey Gross, Butte County Library
Carey Gross, Literacy Specialist at the Butte County Library, is the recipient of the CLA Member of the Year Award for her tireless work promoting literacy services both in her own library and on behalf of all California libraries. Long known to her colleagues as a passionate advocate for literacy services, Carey recently leaped to statewide attention in her valiant efforts to fight a legislative proposal that would have totally eliminated library literacy funding in California. In her role as member of the CLA Legislative Committee, Carey sounded the alarm in a series of e-mails that delivered cogent, focused talking points mixed with impassioned pleas for the importance of literacy as a core library service. Inspired by her leadership, library advocates across the state took time out to contact their state legislators. These letters, e-mails and phone calls ultimately helped to defeat the proposal and save literacy funding.
In her own Butte County Library, and previously at the Redwood City Library, Carey is known and admired by the literacy community throughout the state as a devoted, innovative and inspiring literacy services provider. She has been instrumental in raising the awareness of literacy services across the state through a variety of efforts, including public speaking, workshop presentation, and her professional involvement with the California Library Literacy Services and the California Library Association.
One colleague comments about Carey: ". . .while she has demonstrated a remarkable ability to work collaboratively with other libraries, agencies, corporations and legislators to further the goals of literacy, it all comes down. . .to making the lives of learners more fulfilled and helping them to become a stronger, more confident, and better informed citizenry."
The John and Patricia Beatty Award Winner
Joan W. Blos
Letters from the Corrugated Castle: A Novel of Gold Rush California 1850-1852
CLA Scholarship for Minority Students in Memory of Edna Yelland Winners
Jovanni Williams
Jovanni Williams received her BA in sociology from California State University Long Beach. She is now at the University of California Los Angeles where she is in her second year of graduate study in Library Science and Information Studies program. She is also obtaining a second Master's, in Afro-American Studies, at UCLA. Jovanni is currently working with UCLA faculty in hopes of developing a joint program between the two fields. Jovanni is a southern California native. Growing up, she lived across the street from her city's public library. She does not know if living across the street from the library was a coincidence or a sign, but she believes that she was destined to be a librarian. Jovanni has worked in libraries since the age of 17. She had worked in several types of libraries and now works part time for the UCLA Law Library. Her ultimate career goal is to become an academic librarian at a community college. She wants to share, preserve, and maintain literature, teach information literacy instruction, as well as teach Afro-American Studies courses.
Teresa Mares
Teresa Mares, a library school student at San Jose State University, is currently working as a school librarian for Native American children on the Soboba Reservation. The dilemmas her students face daily motivate her to continue and work hard at her studies. Before discovering librarianship, Teresa earned a bachelor's degree in Communications from CSU San Bernardino. She changed careers to education after working years as a social worker. While participating on a committee for school improvement, she became interested in establishing the school's first library, opening in 2003. Working in a remote area, she gains professional development through school colleagues and professional associations. She will be serving on CLA's Cultural Diversity Committee in November and is a Diversity Task Force Member for the American Association of School Librarians. Her passion for becoming a librarian stems from a desire to serve special populations who are lacking service. Her long-term goal is to encourage individuals from different backgrounds to consider librarianship. Teresa will be the first member in her family to receive a master's degree. She will complete her studies next year and continue as the schools librarian so she may offer Native children professional library services comparable to other area schools.
Cristina Mitra
Cristina Mitra was born and raised in San Francisco and is a 1st generation Filipina and a 4th generation Chicana. She studied Spanish & Latin American Studies at Smith College. Since graduating cum laude in 2002, she has dedicated herself to San Francisco's non-profit sector working in outreach and database management. She cares passionately about creating equity for low-income people of color, immigrants, young people, and the LGBT community.
It has always been crucial for her to intertwine her work with her personal goals of social change, and has chosen to become a librarian as a more sustainable way to achieve these goals. In the short term, she hopes to work as a public librarian serving the Latino and Spanish-speaking community and, in the longer term, she aims to work in policy, advocacy, and management.
When not studying, she works in the after school program of a San Francisco public high school as the librarian. She loves dance, urban biking, cooking, and laughing hard with her family and friends who make life such a joyous experience. She is very grateful to the California Library Association for their generosity and confidence in her ability as a librarian.
The Begun Scholarship Winner
Linda Engelke
Linda Engelke grew up in Manchester, Connecticut and attend Keuka College in upstate New York where she received a B.A. degree in Political Science with an emphasis in International Relations. While attending Keuka, she was chosen for a two month internship with Member of Parliament, David Knox in London, England. She was also awarded a scholarship to study for a semester at the International University in Oslo, Norway where she received a certificate of Norwegian Studies. Linda has loved libraries all her life and have worked in the field for over thirty years-currently as the YA librarian for the Rancho Cucamonga Public Libraries. At present, she is completing classes towards an MLIS degree at SJSU. She expects to graduate by Fall 2009.
CLA Reference Services Press Fellowship Winner
Pamela Eldana
Pamela Eldana grew up in San Gabriel, a suburb of Los Angeles, best known for the San Gabriel Mission. She graduated from Cal Poly Pomona with her Bachelor of Science degree in Social Sciences, with a minor in History and Sociology. Currently, she is the branch supervisor of a public library for Kern County. In this position she directs the daily operations of the branch, located in the rural town of Rosamond, California. Prior to this position, she was employed for over eight years at a private consulting firm in San Francisco, beginning as an Analyst and working her way up to Director of Research. Although she has been working in information services for many years, she only recently realized her career calling - to be a Librarian. She is attending San Jose State University's Master's degree program in Library Science.
Award for Excellence as a Public Librarian Winner
Michelle Perera, Rancho Cucamonga Public Library
Michelle Perera, Library Services Manager, Rancho Cucamonga Public Library, Paul A Biane Library, is an outstanding example of a young professional whose commitment to public service is equaled only by her dedication to the field of librarianship and her enthusiastic endorsement of public librarianship as a profession. While Michelle only received her MLS in 1996, within 10 years she has accumulated a remarkable background, which includes managing a unique library that not only serves as an anchor in a major retail mall but also partners with a professional theater; assisting in the design of two major public library outlets; and serving as an adjunct professor for 8 years with San Jose State University's School of Library and Information Science. Michelle approaches her work with pride, enthusiasm and professionalism. In fact a few of the many colleagues honoring Michelle are former library school students. Michelle represents the best of our profession and we are proud to award her this honor.
Access, Collections & Technical Services Section Award Winner
Xiaoli Li, University of California, Davis
Xiaoli Li has provided exceptional leadership within CLA ACTSS and beyond. She served as President of ACTSS in 2006 and led the ACTSS Board in an intensive networking effort that recruited candidates and new members. Outside of CLA, she has chaired committees of MLA, ILS users group, OCLC task force, and UC librarians association.
Xiaoli is an active advocate for continuing education. She has made numerous presentations. She is a trainer for "Cataloging for the 21st Century," a Library of Congress initiative and was a team member of the Chinese American Librarians Association 21st Century Librarian Seminar Project. She has authored several journal articles on serials control.
Xiaoli's leadership and organizational skills have been evident in her professional positions, including Head of Technical Services at UCD Health Sciences Libraries and Department Head of Cataloging & Metadata Services. She planned serials and CJK conversion projects for several libraries. More recently, she helped plan a major reorganization of technical services at UC Davis.
This award acknowledges her outstanding leadership and contributions in technical services to professional associations and to librarianship on the state, national, and international level.
ACTSS New Leader Award Winner
Michael S. Smith
After fifteen years in the broadcasting industry, Michael S. Smith began volunteering in the Cataloging Department at Fresno County Public Library and was soon hired full-time. Within a few years he entered San Jose State's Library and Information Science program. He plans to graduate with a master's degree in May 2009. While working as a library assistant in cataloging Michael realized the integral part technical services plays in the operations of a library. As a future cataloger he hopes to explore areas of database enhancement, including the role of Web 2.0, user tagging, wikis, and networking.
Michael already has a record of library association service and recently served as Treasurer of the San Jose State Student Chapter of the American Library Association. The CLA ACTSS Board of Directors looks forward to working with Michael as he pursues his career in librarianship.
Outstanding Librarian in Support of Literacy Award Winner
Jean Hofacket, Alameda County Library
Jean Hofacket has shown a commitment to the needs of underserved populations throughout her career, and nowhere has this commitment been more evident than in her support of library literacy services in Alameda County. As County Librarian, Jean has successfully directed the inclusion of literacy into the 5 year strategic as well as the negotiation of service and funding contracts for literacy programs throughout the Library jurisdiction including the County jail and juvenile hall. She is an advocate on behalf of literacy at the state, regional and local level and during the recent state budget crisis, when California Library Literacy Service funds were slated for elimination, Jean led a vocal campaign against the proposal with state lawmakers.
Jean is a visionary leader who supports and encourages literacy program innovation. In 2007, she traveled to the White House with library staff to accept the Coming Up Taller Award on behalf of a program for which she has strongly advocated - the Library's "Write to Read" Literacy Program at Alameda County Juvenile Hall. Jean has also supported and directed library funding towards the Library's "Start with a Story" Project, an award-winning family literacy outreach program for children for children visiting inmates at the Alameda County Jail. Her sensitivity to the needs of the underserved helps to ensure that the library remains a relevant and indispensable force in the lives of our citizens.
Zoia Horn Intellectual Freedom Award Winners
Gloria Won, University of California San Francisco Medical Center Library
Gail Sorrough, University of California San Francisco Medical Center Library
Gloria Won and Gail Sorrough raised awareness about a grievous challenge to intellectual freedom, and helped create a public outcry on the issue which resulted in the reversal of censorship.
Gloria, a librarian at University of California San Francisco Medical Center Library, discovered a problem while conducting a search for the term abortion on POPLINE, the world's largest reproductive health database. Her search was garnering few results. She reported the problem to her director, Gail Sorrough. Won contacted the project's database manager who told her, "Yes, we did make a change in POPLINE. We recently made all abortion terms stop words. As a federally funded project, we decided this was the best for now." This move effectively blocked all searches on the term abortion. POPLINE's move was motivated by political pressure from U.S. Agency for International Development who has anti-abortion agenda and refuses funds for abortion activities or supplies. POPLINE's decision was a violation of intellectual freedom.
Won and Sorrough spread the word about the problem through medical librarian listservs, and the outcry grew. As a result, the dean at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, which supports and maintains POPLINE, directed the project administrators to immediately restore abortion as a search term. Their advocacy on behalf of intellectual freedom is being recognized with this award.
PREXCELLENCE Award Winners
Best in Show Winner
Library A Go-Go
Contra Costa County Library
Less than $5 million Budget
FIRST
Contra Costa Library - Lafayette branch
SECOND
Hayward Public Library - Digital Storytelling
THIRD
Downey City Library - One Book, One Community
$5-10 millon Budget
FIRST
Oceanside Public Library - Mascot Marketing
SECOND
Friends of the San Francisco Public Library - New Organizational Identity & Ballot Measure Empowers (2 winners)
THIRD
Santa Clara City Library - Free 2 Succeed
OVER $10 millon Budget
FIRST
Contra Costa County - Library A Go-Go
SECOND
San Diego Public Library- Children's Book Festival
THIRD
Fresno County Public Library - Annual Report Calendar
Posted on November 25, 2008 10:48 AM | Permalink