Spot Bonus for Michael Slone

Michael Slone has been awarded a spot bonus award for his recent work in Digital Programs. Michael works for Library IT, but is located in Digital Programs in order to support several projects currently under development including the National Digital Newspaper Program and the Daily Racing Form Archive. In the last three months, Michael has been key in developing a number of crucial technological advancements to better serve our digital library users.

• Created a program that enables Google to index our digital content. This has increased our stats by a factor of five. Where before we would receive 15,000 – 20,000 users a month, we are now achieving close to that on a weekly basis.
• Took over development of the Daily Racing Form/National Digital Newspaper Program microfilm evaluation and digitization tracking software which enable national release of the site in January 2010

Congratulations Michael!

Little/Gaines Artist Series Highlighted in ACE Weekly

The Little/Gaines Artist Series, planned and coordinated by Gail Kennedy and Lisa Broom-Price (Gaines Center), has been featured in a cover story in ACE Weekly. This new series has been very well received by the local arts community. Gail also notes that with two Louisville-based artists included this fall, we’ve been building some buzz up the road too. See the story at http://www.aceweekly.com/pdfs/uploads/s_Little-Gaines_Series.pdf

Spot Bonuses for Peggy Phillips and Julene Jones

Peggy Phillips and Julene Jones have been awarded spot bonuses for their work on the Young Reference Collection project, while continuing to manage their daily workflow responsibilities. Since January 2009, Peggy Phillips has been working to incorporate the maintenance of the Young Reference Collection into the Serials Unit workflow. She coordinated various workflow changes and activities with the Serials Unit, Database Integrity, Binding and Shelf Prep in order to ensure back files are handled correctly and that the workflow passes materials efficiently from one area to the other. Julene Jones provided considerable support to the incorporation of this work into the overall technical services workflow through the database maintenance of the collections various records. This project has moved slowly at times, but we are beginning to see the benefits thanks to the work of Peggy and Julene.

Starting the School Year Right at UK

From American Libraries Direct

Starting the school year right at UK

Stacey Greenwell writes: “The University of Kentucky Libraries hosted a huge party in the Information Commons last week for the incoming freshman class. During our two-hour fun fair, the Hubbub, we welcomed around 800 students to campus. This year we were able to move the time slot to 5–7 p.m., which gave us an hour for the party games and socializing to wind down naturally before the building closed.” Hubbub 2009 featured board and video games, a photo booth (right), coloring with crayons, palm and Tarot readings, and a balloon artist....The Uncommon Commons, Aug. 28

New NEH Grant Funding for Historic Newspapers Project

Special Collections and Digital Programs was received word that funding has been awarded for participation in the National Digital Newspapers Project for another 2 years. The award is for $393,081 which brings the total that we have been awarded for this project to $1,102,967. Check out the details at http://www.uky.edu/Libraries/NDNP/
Congratulations Digital Programs!

Spot Bonus for Jennifer Mattern

In the recent rekeying project for Young Library, Jennifer Mattern (who is responsible for key oversight for the group study rooms, faculty study rooms, doctoral student study rooms, and several meeting rooms) had to contact each of the faculty and graduate students who have been issued keys to study rooms, post signs on each study room door alerting occupants of the change, and make arrangements for them to pick up their replacement keys. As many faculty and graduate students are not on campus during the summer, she is continuing to issue new keys and collect the old ones. Thus, key distribution for Jennifer will continue well into the fall semester. Further, as the first point of contact for many building tenants who needed or had problems with their new keys, she communicated almost daily with Mary McLaren and Sherree Osborne to alert them of problems and additional key requests. Congratulations Jennifer!

Spot Bonuses for Mary McLaren and Sherree Osborne

At the end of February a set of keys for Young Library including Ovid’s was lost which necessitated the rekeying of the entire building including private offices and public spaces. This was a daunting task taken on by Mary McLaren and Sherree Osborne. It has taken 3+ months to complete the project, but because of their organizational skills and systemic methods everything has gone smoothly and relatively seamlessly. The task included coordination with the Key Shop staff, library staff, PPD, custodial staff, Ovid’s and all other tenants in the building. A priority in the project for Mary and Sherree was a need to do a careful review of key allocation in the building. This had not been done for some time. They put together a plan identifying the most immediate needs for Phase I of the project, and then worked on Phase II. The outcome is that all doors have been rekeyed; library staff and tenants have been reissued new keys depending on their needs; and an up-to-date database has been created tracking who has what key. Security in the building has been increased because of their careful, detailed work.

Transfer of JSTOR Volumes to Storage Completed

Cindy Parker reports that the JSTOR project that began on March 30, 2009 has been finished. The project was a combined effort between CTS, the Document Delivery unit and Storage. A student project manager oversaw the project at Young Library. The process involved generating inventory sheets, checking the boxes for accuracy, packing boxes and searching for missing volumes. Two student assistants were involved in hauling boxes to the Young Library loading dock and packing boxes. The Document Delivery unit retrieved the journals from the Young Library (3rd floor) stacks for Storage. CTS did the bibliographic work in Voyager on the titles that were packed.

• Total number of boxes packed: 831
• Total number of titles packed: 515
• Total number of volumes packed: 10,103
  

Thanks for a job well done – Cindy Parker, Nancy Lewis, Julene Jones, Marsha Seamans, Barbara Hale, Tanya Reeves, Maggie Nunley and the student assistants.

UK Libraries Wins Four ALA Awards for our Marketing Materials

We have just been notified that four of our submissions to the LLAMA Best of Show Marketing and PR Awards were winners. We don’t have much detail yet but what we know follows:

• Best of Show – Fundraising Materials – Equine Oral History Video
• Best of Show – Videos 30 seconds and under – The Hub @ WT’s Video
• Best of Show – Services Available/Orientation Materials/Policy Materials – UK Libraries Brochure (the one we did for the 10th anniversary)
• Honorable Mention – Web Pages/Home Pages – Archives Blog Curiosities and Wonders

For those of you attending the ALA Conference in Chicago, these awards will be presented at 12:30 on Sunday, July 12th at McCormick Place West, Special Events Area in the Exhibit Hall. The ceremonies take place during the LLAMA Public Relations Swap and Shop event, to run from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the same location.

Gail Kennedy Wins Election for LLAMA President

Congratulations to Gail Kennedy who was recently elected vice-president/president-elect of the Library Leadership and Management Association (LLAMA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA) with more than 4,000 members. The mission of the Library Leadership and Management Association (www.ala.org/llama) is to encourage and nurture current and future library leaders, and to develop and promote outstanding leadership and management practices. Gail is quoted in the press release: “I am honored and excited to have the opportunity to play a leadership role in LLAMA," Kennedy said. "LLAMA faces the challenge, as do all professional organizations, of remaining relevant to members and developing new models of service. LLAMA has embraced this challenge and I look forward to being a part of the progress ahead. In a time when strong leadership and management skills are indispensable, LLAMA will continue to grow as a vibrant community nurturing and supporting library leaders at all levels.”
Well done, Gail!

Kyleidoscope Receives Award

Kyleidoscope, SCDP’s collaboration with the Kentucky Virtual Library and Kentucky Department of Education, has received a 2009 Best of Kentucky Technology Award. The site received the 'Best Application Serving the Public' award which is given to individuals and teams that have designed, developed and deployed applications or improved existing systems that directly deliver services more efficiently and effectively to the public. The Kentucky Department of Education has a nice press release at its site which mentions the award -- http://www.kde.state.ky.us/KDE/HomePageRepository/News+Room/Current+Press+Releases+and+Advisories/09-032.htm

Dean's Award for Outstanding Performance and Service Awards

Last week also saw our annual celebration of the staff appreciation week and our staff awards ceremony. The three recipients of the Dean’s Award for Outstanding Performance are Scott Howard, Mary Spencer and Theresa Yocum. The nominators of these recipients were very articulate about the contributions each has and is making to the success of our libraries. The criteria for the award include:

· Exceptional dedication to the job
· Positive attitude about the job, the department and the UK Libraries as a whole
· Exceptional overall job performance
· Exceptional interpersonal relations with the colleagues and members of the University community
· Demonstrated initiative and creativity in the performance of duties and responsibilities

You can find the PowerPoint presentation from our celebration on the Staff Advisory Council’s SharePoint site. The list of service award recipients is included there as well. The list of those with 5 to 35 years of service to the UK Libraries is impressive. My thanks to each individual for their dedication and hard work.

Congratulations also to Scott, Mary and Theresa! Thank you for all that you do for the UK Libraries.

Graduating Library Student Assistants Celebration April 21, 2009

Without the assistance of our student workers, we would be unable to fulfill the Libraries’ mission. Each year we celebrate our graduating student assistants by asking them to choose a book from our collection that has a special significance. We place a book plate in the book and add a note to the bibliographic record honoring the student and listing their dates of employment. In addition, we ask supervisors to nominate outstanding students and select four who receive a certificate of recognition printed by our King Library Press and their names are added to a plaque in the Young Library Gallery. Congratulations to this year’s nominees:

· Michael Brewster (Fine Arts)
· Lauren Conley (Med Center)
· Aaron DeWitt (Storage)
· Brittany Eberle (Law)
· Sarah Hill (Science)
· Amy Laub (Young - Special Projects/Conservation)
· Shannon Younger (Young - Circulation)

And special congratulations to those selected as outstanding 2009 Library Student Assistants
· Martha (Mattie) Kountz (Med Ctr)
· Jeanette Vindell (Young Dean's Office)
· Lauren Conley, MCL
· Sarah Hill, Science

My sincere appreciation to Toni Greider for standing in for me and thanks to all of you who helped put this celebration together: Terry Brown, Jen Bartlett, Diana Feinberg, Kazuko Hioki, the Hospitality Committee (Kathy Farmer, Dawn Gaye, Mary Geyer, Toni Greider, Patty Hornback, Kathryn LeFevre, Sharon Ross, Mary Vaughn), Janet Layman, Jennifer Mattern, Lalana Powell, Lindsay Shuford, Kitty Taylor, Josh Monroe, and the student supervisors and the branches who sent the books.

Kudos

As the academic year winds down, we have experienced a strong showing of recognition for a variety of accomplishments of individual librarians or projects. This is further evidence of our success in making the good work of the UK Libraries more visible to our local and state communities as well as within our professional community. Please join me in congratulating those who have made these endeavors happen.

UK Libraries Business Liaisons Receive Thanaks in UK Perspectives

During last week’s UK Perspectives featuring President Todd and Becky Naugle, state director of the Kentucky Small Business Development Center, Dr. Naugle gave a nice complement to UK Libraries and the work of our business liaisons, Eeva Hoch and Peter Hesseldenz. They have worked very hard establishing outreach connections with the 17 centers around the commonwealth. It’s wonderful to see that work recognized in such a public forum. Listen to the brief interview at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wuky/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1496231 Congratulations Peter and Eeva!

Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century Wins 2009 Best Archives on the Web Award

Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century, created by Jason Flahardy, won the Most Whimsical Archives-Related Website as part of the 2009 Best Archives on the Web Awards. Check it out at http://www.archivesnext.com/?p=270 Future posts to this blog are expected to give more detail on why the site was selected. Congratulations Jason!

New Web Site - Kyleidoscope -- Highlights the Kentuckiana Digital Library

UK Public Relations has issued a press release highlighting a new web site called Kyleidoscope which is a collaboration of the Kentucky Virtual Library, Kentucky Department of Education and our Special Collections and Digital Programs. The site is intended “to provide the state's K-12 educators and students convenient access to some of Kentucky's most unique resources that span history from 1750 to today.”“Kyleidoscope offers historical information organized by theme, instructional worksheets and historical details. Students will also have the opportunity to use digitized photographs and documents from Kentucky archives on the Web site. The site, which can be used in the classroom, provides a timeline of Kentucky's history divided into themes or eras. Each theme provides links to events that occurred during that period of time in Kentucky's history.” Read more about it in the full press release at http://news.uky.edu/news/display_article.php?artid=4634 Congratulations to Eric Weig and others in Special Collections and Digital Programs.

Nunn Center and WUKY Win Kentucky AP Broadcasters Award

The Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History in a special collaboration with WUKY won first place in the Best Sports Feature/Special category of the Kentucky AP Broadcasters Awards. The collaboration entitled “Mr. Wildcat” Bill Keightley featured a collection of interviews with the beloved UK basketball manager. Read the full press release here http://news.uky.edu/news/display_article.php?artid=4587 Congratulations Doug!

Stacey Greenwell Wins NextGen Librarian Award from Lyrasis

Lyrasis has announced the winners of its first annual 2009 NextGen Librarian award “created to identify and celebrate rising leaders in the library community.” Stacey Greenwell received the award in the Leadership category. Here is the full citation:

Nominated as “a true blended librarian” and “technology innovator.” As part of a training program on social networking, she made “house calls” to library staff to expose them to new tools and is part of the Second Life campus-wide group. A leader in the Special Libraries Association, she has been accepted to the Frye Leadership Institute.”

Congratulations Stacey!

Promotion to Librarian II with Tenure

We have received word from the Provost that he has approved the promotion and tenure of our candidates this year effective July 1, 2009 subject to the approval of the Board of Trustees at their June meeting. Congratulations to our colleagues!

• Jan Carver, promotion to Librarian II with tenure
• Kazuko Hioki, promotion to Librarian II with tenure