September 2017 429 C&RL News Chase Ollis ACRL’s 2018 Awards Program Honoring outstanding achievements in academic librarianship Chase Ollis is ACRL’s Program Officer for Professional Development, email: collis@ala.org © 2017 Chase Ollis Every year, ACRL celebrates the opportu-nity to honor the outstanding achieve- ments of academic and research librarians across North America. From a business col- lege using monsters in the library to teach information literacy, to an assistant curator’s digital project of oral histories and archival material highlighting the contributions of Latinas and their families and organizations, to a college library’s new model of instruc- tion using Research Parties and TED Talk as Research Inspiration, the innovations of our community have continued to demonstrate the notable impact librarianship has in the academic landscape. Made possible by generous corporate support, the annual presentation of our presti- gious awards, grants, and fellowships to these and other deserving individuals and institu- tions enables ACRL to honor the very best in academic librarianship. This year, ACRL once again seeks to celebrate and recognize the accomplishments of our peers. ACRL members are an integral part of our successful awards program. Please consider acknowledging those who have influenced your thinking, your practice, and your growth as an academic or research librarian. We urge you to nominate colleagues whose work you admire, and whose contributions merit recognition by the profession. Your nomina- tions will ensure that the pool of candidates for each award remains both competitive and distinguished. Complete information about the ACRL awards program, including nomination pro- cedures, past winners, criteria and contacts, is available in the Awards and Scholarships section of the ACRL website at www.acrl.org. December 1, 2017, is the deadline for most of the awards to be presented in 2018. A brief description of each award is listed below. Achievement and distinguished service awards • Excellence in Academic Libraries Award (sponsored by GOBI Library Solutions from EBSCO): $3,000 for each type of library award (college, community college, and uni- versity). Recognizes academic libraries that are outstanding in furthering the educational missions of their institutions. • Academic/Research Librarian of the Year Award (sponsored by GOBI Library Solutions from EBSCO): $5,000 award. Recog- nizes an outstanding member of the academic or research library profession. • Hugh C. Atkinson Memorial Award (sponsored by ACRL, Association for Library Collections and Technical Services, Library Leadership and Management Association, Library and Information Technology Associa- tion): cash award. Recognizes outstanding achievements (including risk-taking) in the areas of library automation, management, or development and research. mailto:collis%40ala.org?subject= C&RL News September 2017 430 • Politics, Policy, and International Relations Section Marta Lange/SAGE- CQ Press Award (sponsored by SAGE-CQ Press): $1,000 award. Recognizes a librarian who has made distinguished contributions to bibliography and information service in law or political science. • Miriam Dudley Instruction Li- brarian Award (sponsored by the ACRL Instruction Section): $1,000 award. Rec- ognizes an individual librarian for signifi- cant contributions to the advancement of instruction in a college or research library environment. • Instruction Section Innovation Award (sponsored by EBSCO Information Services): $3,000 award. Honors librarians who have implemented innovative approach- es to information literacy at their respective institutions or in their communities. • College Libraries Section Innova- tion in College Librarianship Award (sponsor pending): $1,000 award. Honors librarians who demonstrate a capacity for innovation in working with or serving undergraduates or instructors in the areas of programs, services, and operations; or creating innovations for library colleagues who facilitate their ability to better serve the library’s community. • Community College Learning Re- sources Leadership/Library Achievement Awards (sponsored by EBSCO Information Services): $750 for each of two awards rec- ognizing outstanding achievement in library programs or leadership. • Routledge Distance Learning Li- brarianship Conference Sponsorship Award (sponsored by Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group): $1,200 conference sponsor- ship award to honor any individual ACRL member working in the field of, or contrib- uting to the success of, distance learning librarianship or related library service in higher education. • Distinguished Education and Behav- ioral Sciences Librarian Award: Honors outstanding contributions to Education and Behavioral Sciences librarianship through ac- complishments and service to the profession. • Women and Gender Studies Section Award for Career Achievement: Recog- nizes career achievement in Women and Gender Studies librarianship. • Women and Gender Studies Sec- tion Award for Significant Achievement: 2016–17 ACRL President Irene M. H. Herold (l) and Senior Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer, GOBI Library Solutions from EBSCO Mark Kendall present the 2017 ACRL Academic/Research Librarian of the Year Award to Loretta Parham of the Atlanta University Center Woodruff Library. September 2017 431 C&RL News Honors a distinguished academic librarian who has made outstanding contributions to Women and Gender Studies through accomplishments and service to the pro- fession. • University Libraries Section Out- standing Professional Development Award (sponsored by Library Juice Acad- emy): $1,000 award. Recognizes librarians, archivists, or curators whose contributions to providing professional development op- portunities for librarians have been especially noteworthy or influential. Research awards and grants • ESS De Gruyter European Librarian- ship Study Grant (sponsored by the Walter de Gruyter Foundation for Scholarship and Research): €2,500 grant. Supports research in European studies with an emphasis on librarianship, the book trade, resource docu- mentation, and similar information-science related topics. Publications • Katharine Kyes Leab and Daniel J. Leab Exhibition Catalogue Awards (spon- sored by Katharine Kyes Leab and Daniel J. Leab, American Book Prices Current): Recognizes outstanding catalogs published by American or Canadian institutions in con- junction with library exhibitions. Deadline: October 15, 2017. • Ilene F. Rockman Instruction Pub- lication of the Year Award (sponsored by Emerald Publishing): $3,000 award. Recog- nizes an outstanding publication related to instruction in a library environment published in the last two years. • Science and Technology Section Oberly Award for Bibliography in the Agricultural or Natural Sciences: This bi- ennial award is given in odd-numbered years for the best English-language bibliography in the field of agriculture or a related science. If you would like more information about the ACRL 2018 Awards Program, visit the Awards and Scholarships section of our website at www.acrl.org or contact ACRL Program Officer Chase Ollis at collis@ala.org. We welcome your nominations and look forward to celebrating achievements in aca- demic librarianship in 2018. tation on her new role, activities, and goals, and then have some time for questions and answers at the end. Instead, I plan on having the new director as our “celebrity interview” at an upcoming meeting. The “celebrity” first has a 15-minute interview with the moderator with prepared questions, and has attendees watching and taking notes. The next ten minutes has the audience generate a series of questions using the Liberating Structure 1,2,4 ALL, followed by the audience generated questions posed to the “celebrity.” How this differs from the presentation is that even with prepared questions during the first 15 min- utes, there is still a liveliness that comes from an interview. The involvement in generating questions together creates a stronger connec- tion between the speaker and the audience, and the questions are vetted by attendees, making for more interesting questions. Liberating Structures often build time and structure for quiet, individual reflection, a commodity in short supply in meetings. The library, as a service organization, needs tools to tap the collective intelligence of staff to find local solutions to challenges and op- portunities. Try a Liberating Structure at your next meeting or event, my experience tells me that you will be very pleased at how engaged the attendees are, and how much more productive your meeting will be. Notes 1. Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith Mc- Candless, The surprising power of liberating structures (New York: Liberating Structures Press, 2013). 2. “Liberating Structures Menu,” accessed August 5, 2016, www.liberatingstructures. com/ls/. (“Never be bored at a meeting again!,” continues from page 428) mailto:collis%40ala.org?subject= http://www.liberatingstructures.com/ls/ http://www.liberatingstructures.com/ls/