Winners of the 2010 Federal Library of the Year, Federal Librarian of the Year, and Federal Library Technician of the Year Announced

From a FLICC/Library of Congress Announcement:

The Federal Library and Information Center Committee (FLICC) has announced the winners of its national awards for federal librarianship, which recognize the many innovative ways that federal libraries, librarians and library technicians fulfill the information demands of government, business and scholarly communities, and the American public.

FLICC will honor the award winners at the 2011 FLICC Forum on May 17, 2011, at the Library of Congress in Washington, where the winners will receive their awards from Librarian of Congress James H. Billington. The names of the winners will remain on permanent display in the FLICC offices at the Library of Congress.

Federal libraries and staff throughout the United States and abroad competed in three award categories. The winners are listed below.

2010 Federal Library/Information Center of the Year

Large Library/Information Center (with a staff of 11 or more federal and/or contract employees): Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Library Network, Washington, D.C., is recognized for its leadership role in creating a collaborative community and responding to patrons’ needs through innovative projects. In Fiscal Year 2010, EPA libraries worked together to digitize 7,500 agency publications, adding to the growing inventory of more than 45,000 digital documents available to the public at no cost. EPA libraries also implemented an internal live-chat reference service and began using webinar technology to bring locally developed library classes to an agency-wide audience. Serving as a point of contact for public inquiries, EPA libraries collectively addressed nearly 9,000 public reference questions and loaned more than 8,000 documents, saving taxpayers an estimated $266,000.

UPDATE (5/17/2010):  Here’s a News Release About EPA Winning the Award

Small Library/Information Center (with a staff of 10 or fewer federal and/or contract employees): Medical Library, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Ft. Detrick, Md., is recognized for providing an array of educational and informational opportunities to engage its patrons and increase its value to other agencies at Ft. Detrick and to the Department of Homeland Security’s National Biodefense and Countermeasures Center. In addition to designing an innovative combination of support and outreach efforts, the library digitized and preserved laboratory notebooks and developed a collection of published research papers from junior scientists. By providing searchable electronic access to these digitized resources and by maintaining its broader collection of e-resource, database, document and traditional materials, the library served more than 850 institute employees and sister-agency staff members throughout the command. Included in its Fiscal Year 2010 support to its local community was the library’s participation in the committees on Military Family Readiness, Deployed Soldier Support and Institutional Animal Care and Use. Through its internal and external outreach efforts, the library established itself as the prime source of information and innovative programming and thoroughly underscored its value to the institute and its neighboring community.

2010 Federal Librarian of the Year

Eleanor G. Frierson, Deputy Director of the National Agricultural Library (NAL), Beltsville, Md., is recognized for her leadership and direction of NAL and her service as co-chair of the Science.gov Alliance. She has continually nurtured partnerships across government and has advocated tirelessly for federal libraries and the value of open access to information. She has demonstrated excellence in her abilities to manage the full lifecycle of information, build dynamic collections, critically evaluate, select and filter resources from a broad array of quality sources, negotiate information acquisition and develop organizational information policies. Frierson is also known for her success in strategically mobilizing information organizations to achieve a shared vision of excellence. In fiscal year 2010, she oversaw the launch of major enhancements and content additions to Science.gov 5.0, including a new search tool for science scholarships and fellowships, search for both the Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations, and a “Science in the News” feed from U.S. science agencies. Internationally, she chairs the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) Government Information and Official Publications Section, and serves as the U.S. representative to the WorldwideScience.org Alliance.

2010 Federal Library Technician of the Year

Laura (Layne) Bosserman, Library Technician, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., is recognized for her initiative, flexibility and persistence in meeting the goals of the Justice libraries. Her work with the Washington offices and three field offices helped update their resource collections and saved the agency more than $100,000. While busy with her regular assignments of maintaining the collection, filling article and interlibrary loan requests, and cataloging new materials for a large library, Bosserman created an innovative workaround for collapsing holdings in the library’s new integrated library system. In addition, she added or edited more than 2,000 catalog records for the library’s periodical holdings. Bosserman is known as the information professional who is effective in keeping the emphasis on the value of materials while ensuring funds are spent wisely.

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