by Jill Shockey, Public Relations and Marketing

What do you believe are among the University Libraries’ greatest, and measurable, achievements during the 2015-2016 academic year? How can the Libraries’ annual report inclusively represent all of our units’ top-level activities and superlatives equitably, while supporting the Libraries’ and the University’s strategic plan goals? And how can the Libraries stand out among its Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) peers on paper to help its assessors understand what we already know — that we are an academic library of excellence, worthy of such a title?

An administration-appointed, Libraries-wide committee aims to answer those questions — and welcomes your ideas to support its efforts.

The committee began convening in summer 2016 to help identify and elevate the position of the Libraries’ most prominent, inclusive, and worthy projects for promotion. The committee’s charge was to recommend and review these subjects for its upcoming and third consecutive annual report as well as for submission to the ACRL’s Excellence in Academic Libraries Award. (The committee believes the University Libraries is deserving of such recognition and would like to put our professional community and colleagues’ collective accomplishments in the best light to achieve it.)

Committee members include:

• Steve Borrelli, head of Library Assessment;
• Joe Fennewald, head of the Knowledge Commons;
• Chris Holobar, manager of Lending and Reserve Services;
• Nicki Hendrix, director of Development;
• Athena Jackson, Dorothy Foehr Huck Chair and head of Special Collections;
• Sue Kellerman, Judith O. Sieg Chair for Preservation;
• Binky Lush, manager of discovery access and web services;
• Emily Rimland, information literacy librarian and learning technologies coordinator;
• Tom Reinsfelder, Penn State Mont Alto reference librarian;
• Jill Shockey, manager of Public Relation and Marketing; and
• Ann Snowman, head of Access Services and User Services Training Program.

Patricia Hswe, digital content strategist, head of ScholarSphere User Services and co-director of the department of Publishing and Curation Services, also had served on the committee.

Members have been reviewing peer institutions’ annual reports, and are now assessing content to be included in the final version of the Libraries’ 2015-16 Annual Report. They soon will be doing the same for the ACRL award. The latter recognizes “an outstanding community college, college, and university library each year. This award is to recognize the accomplishments of librarians and other library staff as they come together as members of a team to support the mission of their institution.”

The criteria for the award is provided on the organization’s website.

Committee members welcome Libraries’ employees submissions of suggestions for both the ACRL Excellence in Academic Libraries Award application — especially noting this listed criteria — and the annual report, both to be produced by Public Relations and Marketing.

Please reach out to any of the committee members with ideas for projects by Friday, Sept. 30.