People

Appointments & Retirements

Berry, Maryanne

Reference Librarian Maryanne Berry retired in July after 44 years at Cranston (R.I.) Public Library.
Becker, Stephanie

Stephanie Becker joined Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland as institutional repository content manager September 25.
Bogage, Alan

Alan Bogage, library director at Carroll Community College in Westminster, Maryland, retired June 30, 2017.
Currie, Nancy

Nancy Currie retired as director of Madison (Ohio) Public Library November 22.
Czesak, Cindy

Cindy Czesak, director of Paterson (N.J.) Free Public Library, retired in November.

At ALA

Julian, Jeff

Jeff Julian, director of the Public Awareness Office, left ALA April 6.
Brown, Yumeka

Yumeka Brown joined the Office for Intellectual Freedom as program officer March 5.
Curl, Kit

Kit Curl joined ALA Editions/Neal-Schuman as operations manager on April 17.
Glimpse, Willie

Willie Glispie, development coordinator and Governance Office senior administrative assistant, left ALA April 5.
Grant, Sarah

Sarah Grant, marketing associate for Booklist, left ALA April 17.

Cited

Athens Regional Library System

Georgia Public Library Service has named Athens Regional Library System as Georgia’s Public Library of the Year.
Edwards, Mary

Mary Edwards, assistant university librarian at the University of Florida’s Health Science Center Libraries in Gainesville, received the Medical Library Association’s Lucretia W. McClure Excellence in Education Award.
Robinson, Alice

Alice Robinson, school librarian for the West Babylon (N.Y.) Union Free School District, was selected as 2018 Western Suffolk Board of Cooperative Educational Services School Librarian of the Year and received the 2018 Follett Conference Scholarship to attend the 2018 New York Library Association Section of School Librarians Conference.
Hunter, Ben

Ben Hunter, associate dean of libraries at the University of Idaho in Moscow, was named the Idaho Library Association’s 2017 Librarian of the Year.
Polanka, Sue

Sue Polanka, associate university librarian for public services at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, received the Jay Ladd Distinguished Service Award from the Academic Library Association of Ohio October 27.

Obituaries

Holter, Patricia

Patricia (Pat) Holter, 86, a member of the board of trustees at Meigs County (Ohio) District Public Library for more than 50 years, died January 8. She was instrumental in securing funding for the county library system and in opening Eastern Public Library, one of the first school–public library partnerships in Ohio. She received Ohio Library Council’s Trustee of the Year Award in 2008.
Powell, Richard

Richard L. Powell, 89, member of the board of trustees of the Public Library of Steubenville and Jefferson County (Ohio) from 1966–2016 and a former judge of Steubenville Municipal Court, died November 10.
Biblo, Herbert

Herbert Biblo, 93, executive director of the Long Island (N.Y.) Library Resources Council (LILRC) for 35 years until retiring last year, died in March. Biblo was American Library Association (ALA) Treasurer from 1980–1984 and had been active in ALA’s Social Responsibilities Round Table since the 1970s. Biblo led the creation of legislative breakfasts in Nassau County and Suffolk County, and the LILRC Annual Conference on Libraries and the Future. He received the Distinguished Service Award from the Library Trustees Associ- ation of New York State in 2010 and the Nassau and Suffolk County Library Associations’ LDA Award for Excellence in Library Achievement in 2000.
Margolis, Bernard

Bernard Margolis, 69, New York State librarian and assistant commissioner for libraries since 2009, died April 14. Remembered as an advocate for state and federal support for library programs and services, he had previously served as president of Boston Public Library from 1997–2008, director and CEO of Pikes Peak Library District in Colorado Springs, Colorado, from 1988–1997, and director of Monroe County (Mich.) Library System from 1976–1988. Margolis had been an ALA councilor and a delegate to the White House Conference on Libraries, and he held leadership positions in the Association of Research Libraries. He also contributed to several books and articles, and served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Library Administration and Bottom Line: The Magazine of Library Financial Management.
Miller, Elizabeth

Elizabeth B. Miller, 71, a faculty member at the University of South Carolina School of Library and Information Science for 18 years, died January 31. Miller was the author of several editions of The Internet Resource Directory for K–12 Teachers and Librarians and served as a member of the Association of Library Service to Children’s Carnegie Award Committee and Notable Children’s Videos Committee for many years. She received the South Carolina Association of School Librarians’ Distinguished Service Award in 2012.

Latest Library Links

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Two Houston schools extensively damaged by Hurricane Harvey in 2017 are the recipients of catastrophic disaster relief grants offered as part of AASL’s Beyond Words: The Dollar General School Library Relief Fund. Thompson Intermediate School and Moore Elementary School both suffered devastating losses to the school libraries in the hurricane and its aftermath. The grant program has provided relief to public school libraries nationwide that have suffered material losses because of a major disaster.

AASL, June 15
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Ale Teller writes: “The Newberry Library’s collection of road maps and travel ephemera total 250,000 items, one of the largest troves of such material in the world. Over the past 30 years, Newberry map catalogers have individually cataloged 20,000 road maps and travel brochures. Since fall 2017, library staff are applying archival methods to an unprocessed swathe of the collection, grouping similar types of items into folders according to region, state, county, or place rather than giving each piece of ephemera its own catalog record.”

Newberry Library, June 6
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In a small claims court ruling, Jessamyn West, librarian at the Randolph (Vt.) Technical Career Center, has won a $600 judgment against credit ratings agency Equifax. In September, West walked into the Orange County Courthouse in Chelsea, Vermont, and filed papers asking the judge to compel Equifax to pay her nearly $5,000 in connection with its massive 2017 data breach. Her mother had died that year and, as co-executor of the estate, West had run into various problems verifying her online identity during what already was a distressing experience.

Lebanon (N.H.) Valley News, June 13
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Jami Treman writes: “As a first-year National Library Legislative Day coordinator for Minnesota, I was equally thrilled and anxious to lead our state’s delegation this year. After diligent, patient persistence, I was lucky enough to schedule time with all 10 of our congressional offices. One of our three asks at NLLD was to extend an invitation to our legislators to visit a local library when they’re back home in the district to witness firsthand the impact libraries have on communities, particularly to see broadband access in action.”

District Dispatch, June 15
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Linda W. Braun writes: “‘You need to get out of the library to build relationships and find out what teen interests are.’ Workshop participants frequently hear me say that, and the response to my statement is almost always agreement. Yet I find, over and over, that public library staffers prioritize getting teens into the building over getting themselves out. At least in part, library staffers continue to stay inside because of systemic barriers. What are some of these barriers?”

American Libraries column, June
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ALA Publishing eLearning Solutions will host a new session of its 90-minute workshop, “How to Fix the 25 Most Common Library Website Problems” with Laura Solomon, on August 15. In this workshop, you’ll discover not only the inherent challenges your patrons may face with website issues, but you’ll also learn ways to fix them and even rate how hard those fixes are. Registration is through the ALA Store.

eLearning Solutions, June 15
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On December 17, 2004, Betty Jean “BJ” Gooch, special collections librarian at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, was tased and tied up as two former students stole rare books from the library. She found herself unable to talk about it for many years, and has never before spoken to the media. The trauma came not just from being tied up and threatened, but the added violations of two sacred things: the workplace she regarded as a home and the special relationship she had teaching students about so many of the library’s treasures.

Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader, June 14