FEDLINK Announces Winners of National Awards For Federal Librarianship (FY 2020)

From the Library of Congress:

Federal Library and Information Network (FEDLINK) 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 the government, business and scholarly communities and the American public.

Federal libraries and staff throughout the United States and abroad competed for the awards. The fiscal year 2020 winners are as follows.

2020 Federal Libraries/Information Centers of the Year

Large library/information center (staff of 11 or more federal and/or contract employees):

Joint Base Lewis-McChord Library System, Washington
The Joint Base Lewis-McChord Library System is recognized for its commitment to providing high quality, in-demand programs and services to the entire base community of military service members, their families, retirees, civilian employees, contractors and students. The system ensured service members had the materials needed to access necessary educational programming while providing opportunities for families during times of transition. From a focus on early literacy for children to online training for adults, the library system provided services to 200,000 patrons who borrowed over 109,000 items, more than any other Army Morale, Welfare and Recreation Library in the world. Despite limitations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the library system still offered 439 programs, including bilingual story hours, prerecorded story times, interactive online programming and summer reading programs.

Small library/information center (staff of 10 or fewer federal and/or contract employees):

Barr Memorial Library at Fort Knox, Fort Knox, Kentucky
The Barr Memorial Library is recognized for its quick and responsive innovation in adapting existing services to the virtual world. The library developed and implemented a popular contactless carryout service, a model adopted by several other Army libraries.  Its outreach efforts increased adult reading program participation by more than 50%, and the library’s 356 programs, which ranged from author events to story hours for preschool children to craft programs for all ages, attracted nearly 20,000 in-person and virtual participants. The library developed and led 20 Army Morale, Welfare and Recreation Libraries in the creation and support of Fantober, a comic-themed event at 20 different installations that reached 8,400 participants with 155 unique programs. Beyond attracting new or lapsed users to libraries, the event created partnerships with 35 on-Post agencies, attracted eight sponsors and created collaborations with 32 private, commercial and individual partners.

2020 Federal Librarian of the Year

Mariana Long, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC
Long is recognized for her outstanding service at Department of Justice libraries. Long and her staff of 12 provided research support to four of the seven litigating divisions at DOJ, including civil, civil rights, criminal and environment and natural resources. Long and her staff handled nearly 40% of the library’s 36,651 research and reference queries. Additionally, she taught docket research to more than 100 attorneys, support staff and coordinated a continuing legal education class series assisting more than 300 attorneys with their legal education requirements. She provided orientations to more than 100 attorneys and staff from across the department. As co-chair of the library’s marketing committee, Long anticipated the needs of customers and widely promoted services, resources and collections. She took the lead in improving instruction and training for staff on expert witness vetting and, with her staff, vetted more than 300 experts in fiscal year 2020.

2020 Federal Library Technician of the Year

Sharon D. Pemberton, Cyber Research Center at the Cyber Center of Excellence, Fort Gordon, Georgia
Pemberton is recognized for her dedication to the library mission and its community. In the midst of the pandemic, the Cyber Research Center migrated to a new library services platform. Pemberton navigated this change between two cataloging systems, cataloging more than 100 books in each system, set migration priorities and offered insightful ideas for improvements. Dedicated to supporting the research, customer service and cataloging needs of the center, she implemented a new concierge system for book lending and created interactive forms and spreadsheets to track the library budget, expenditures and yearly metrics. Determined to offer excellent support for military education students’ research projects and assignments, Pemberton’s work was essential to executing the training and education missions of the center.

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