Congratulations to the following members of the Libraries community on their recent achievements:

Barbara I. Dewey, dean of University Libraries and Scholarly Communications, has been appointed to a three-year term on the board of directors of the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), an international consortium of university, college and independent research libraries.

Athena Jackson, ] Dorothy Foehr Huck Chair and Head of Special Collections, was elected vice-chair/chair-elect of the ACRL Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS). She has served on various committees for RBMS including Diversity Committee chair and Conference Program Planning co-chair. She currently holds seats on the RBMS Budget & Development Committee and the 2017 ACRL Conference Coordinating Committee.

Matt Ciszek, head librarian of the Lartz Memorial Library, Penn State Shenango, was re-elected to a two-year term on the executive board of the ALA Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table as one of three directors-at-large. Ciszek has been involved with the GLBT Round Table since 2007, and had served as membership chair before his election to the executive board in 2014. He has also served as a councilor-at-large on ALA Council since 2011, and is completing a two-year term on the Committee on Diversity and the Constitution and Bylaws Committee.

Rebecca Miller, head of Library Learning Services, was elected as a councilor-at-large for the ALA Council. She has been involved with the ALA since 2008 and has served on various committees and in a number of different roles, including secretary and executive board member for the ALA New Members Round Table, co-chair of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) 2013 Panel Sessions Committee and member of the ACRL 2013 National Conference Coordinating Committee, and a board member of the ACRL New Publications Advisory Board, of which she is also the current incoming chair. She previously served on the ALA Council as the Virginia Chapter councilor.  

Vanessa Eyer, assistant librarian in the Engineering Library, has been invited to participate in the Minnesota Institute for Early Career Librarians at the University of Minnesota, July 16-22. The institute, for invited librarians in the first three years of their careers from traditionally underrepresented groups, introduces to key concepts in the practice of academic library leadership during an immersive one-week event.

Employees of the Nesbitt Library, Penn State Wilkes-Barre, received two Hayfield Awards  Friday, May 6, at the campus awards ceremony. Hayfield Awards “honor people who have been outstanding citizens of our campus community during the past academic year.” The first award, for “Excellence in Service to Campus/Community,” was given to Library staff: Jennie Knies, Megan Mac Gregor, and John Owens. The second award, for “Research Excellence/Creative Accomplishment,” went to the Celebration of Scholarship Committee, which included Knies and Mac Gregor.

On Thursday, May 5, the Libraries recognized two student finalists and one winner with its annual Outstanding Undergraduate Thesis Awards, which is given in partnership with the Schreyer Honors College:

Top winner of the $1, 250 award is Elyse Mark, a Schreyer Honors College scholar and spring 2016 graduate with degrees in English and Asian studies, for her thesis “Framing a Crisis: Xinhua’s Portrayal of the 2009 Urumqi Riots to the International Community.”

Timothy J. Sullivan Jr., a Schreyer scholar who graduated in fall 2015 with degrees in psychology and French and Francophone studies, was awarded $750 for his thesis “PTSD, Gender and IPV Perpetration: How (Not) Expressing Emotions Matters.” Katrina Eckel, a Schreyer scholar majoring in history and English, was awarded $500 for her thesis “What the Other Didn’t See: An Intersectional Analysis of the Writings of Two Civilians in World War I German-Occupied Belgium.”