The Committee on LAUC-LA Distinguished Librarian Award

Mid-Year Report, 2001/2002

Committee members: Jan Goldsmith, Jennifer Lentz, Ruby Bell-Gam (Chair), and John V. Richardson, Dept. of Information Studies (Faculty member).

The Committee’s charge from the LAUC-LA Chair was as follows:

“From the by-laws:

Section 10. Committee on LAUC-LA Distinguished Librarian Award.

1.      The Committee shall consist of four members: three career librarians from different library units, and one UCLA faculty member.

2.      The Committee shall proceed as instructed by its charge.

One of the things we really want to accomplish this year is to put a brief description and the criteria up on the LAUC-LA webpage…  I would appreciate your handling that as your first charge.”

The Committee met on several occasions in October and November, 2001, to revise the call for nominations for various media, and to develop the award description for the website.  The latter was completed in December and David Cappoli posted the description to the webpage at that time.  The Committee met again in February 2002 to begin publicizing the call for nominations.

An announcement was posted to the LAUC-LA webpage, and to LAUCTALK-L, followed by reminders.  Printed flyers for public posting were distributed to both on-campus and off-campus libraries.  The Committee received five nominations and met after the deadline in April to evaluate the candidates.  The winner will be announced at the LAUC-LA Spring Membership meeting on April 25.

In Fall 2001 the Committee requested that the LAUC-LA Board resolve the discrepancy between the award name and the committee name.  We noted that while the By-Laws establish the “Committee on LAUC-LA Distinguished Librarian Award”, the award itself has been officially called “LAUC-LA Librarian of the Year” since its inception, as witnessed in all committee records, certificates of award, and the LAUC-LA virtual plaque at the website.  The Committee suggested that the award and committee names be reconciled to avoid any confusion.  The Board invited committee representatives to its meeting on two occasions and recommended that the Committee adhere to the By-Laws.  However, the Committee thinks that the name issue is still unresolved.  In the meantime, we continue to use the traditional term, “Librarian of the Year”, for this year’s award as was used in previous years.

The Board further asked the Committee to poll the LAUC-LA membership to determine if the award should continue, given the absence of a monetary prize.  The Committee is currently designing a survey for this purpose to be distributed in mid-May.

Respectfully submitted,

Ruby Bell-Gam, Chair (2001/2002)