Left to right: Debora Cheney, Kristine Kasianovitz, Sheila McGarr, Smittie Bolner, Maryellen Trautman

James Bennett Childs Award

Recipient: Smittie Bolner (Myrtle)

The 2001 Childs Award recipient is Myrtle Smith Bolner who recently retired from Louisiana State University after a long and distinguished career. The GODORT Awards Committee honors Smittie for her leadership role in providing improved access to government information. In receiving the Childs Award, Smittie joins a small illustrious group, which includes fellow Louisianan Margaret T. Lane. Smittie first worked in the documents department at LSU, then oversaw the successful transfer of the documents department to the reference department. Over the years Smittie has participated in an impressive array of workshops, symposia and conferences about online processing, documents in the online catalog, managing a documents collection and similar topics.

In addition to teaching a course in the use of libraries, Smittie co-authored a text originally titled Books, Libraries and Research, which has gone through several title changes and revisions. It remains a required text in many quarters and is used by the U.S. Army for training purposes.

Smittie has been an active member of the American Library Association and the Louisiana Library Association for over twenty years. GODORT secretaries tend to be unsung heroines and Smittie is no exception. She served in that post in 1995/96. She has also ably served as chair of the Louisiana GODORT. In 1990 Smittie (along with three others) was honored with the CIS/ALA/GODORT Documents to the People Award for work on a Marcive project to edit and upgrade the cataloging records of the Government Printing Office. These librarians led their staffs in the total revision of over a quarter a million of MARC records. The Louisiana Library Association has honored Smittie with their 2001 Essae M. Culver Award, their highest award. The Association of College and Research Libraries, the Louisiana Federal Depository Library Council, the Patent Depository Association and the Southeastern Library Association have all benefited from Smittie's energetic presence and wise counsel.

Smittie's publications run the gamut from practical advice (Designing A Procedures Manual: Benefits and Pitfalls and Online Processing of Government Documents: An Overview) to thoughts on larger questions (The Louisiana Library Association Intellectual Freedom Manual 1986; 1994 revision with Charlene Cain).

James Bennett Childs was renowned for inspiring a new generation of documents librarians. It was this aspect of Smittie Bolner's many faceted career that particularly impressed the Awards Committee. One of her nominators wrote glowingly of the quantity and quality of documents librarians who have had their primary training and mentoring under Smittie at Louisiana State University. Smittie has nurtured and touched the lives of many librarians (now spread far beyond Louisiana) in a profound way. They are enthusiastic supporters and deeply grateful.

CIS/GODORT/ALA "Documents to the People" Award

Recipient: Sheila McGarr
The year 2001 recipient of the CIS/ GODORT/ALA "Documents the People" Award is Sheila M. McGarr, Executive Director of National Library of Education. This award is presented to the individual, library, institution, or other non-commercial group that has most effectively encouraged the use of government documents in support of library service. The award includes a cash stipend generously sponsored by Congressional Information Service, Inc., to be used to support a project of the recipients' choice.

During her eighteen year career at the Government Printing Office Sheila was a committed and articulate spokesmen for the FDLP and within the Library Programs Service was an able and forceful advocate for free public access to all government information. Sheila worked in a variety of positions which made her known to the entire federal depository community. Sheila regularly articulated GPO policies and procedures to professional conference and traveled the country providing training, moral support and inspiration to the librarians administering depository collections. Consequently Sheila is one of the most widely known members of GODORT.

Sheila has had a huge impact on the training of federal documents librarians. As an inspector she offered individual training and was in on the ground floor of the interagency depository seminars which have been invaluable in getting new librarians up to speed. During her tenure in the Depository Administration branch she educated us on the procurement process.

Ms. McGarr has been a member of ALA/GODORT since 1986 and truly embodies the "Documents to the people" slogan.

In January 2001, Sheila M. McGarr was appointed as the Executive Director of the National Library of Education (NLE) within the U.S. Department of Education.

Bernadine Abbott Hoduski Founders Award

Recipient: Maryellen Trautman

The 2001 recipient if the Hoduski Founders Award is Maryellen Trautman. The nomination letters highlighted Maryellen's government information service at all levels - state, regional, national and international - over a span of thirty years.

Maryellen Trautman served on the very first Depository Library Council, 1973 to 1976, while Regional Depository Librarian at the Oklahoma Department of Libraries. During her time at Oklahoma she initiated outreach and reference services for librarians, agency staff and the public. She had earlier worked as Legislative Reference Librarian in Oklahoma, providing legislative research and indexing all Oklahoma bills.

During her years in Oklahoma, Maryellen helped to organize ALA's Government Documents Round Table, helping to write the GODORT constitution and serving as the first secretary of the Federal Documents Task Force.

In 1979 Maryellen moved to the National Archives where she is still the U.S. Government Publications Librarian at the Archives Library Information Center. Referring to the move Maryellen said, "I was a government publications junkie for years; coming to Washington let me meet the people who write them." The Archives Library Information Center has a large and unique collection; much of Maryellen's day is spent in retrospective cataloging of government publications.

Elsewhere in Washington, Maryellen helped to organize the Documents Interest Group of the District of Columbia Library Association and throughout the years served as chair and secretary of that organization. She is currently the Executive Director of the Society for History in the Federal Government and has been active in the Society of American Archivists, the Special Library Association, and the IFLA Section on Government Information and Official Publications.

Maryellen Trautman is a true life-long champion of government information. Her nominators call her "an activist documents librarian" and "a devoted, concerned, and talented government documents librarian" who "effectively encouraged the use of federal documents in many ways by word and deed ..." She is a most deserving recipient of the 2001 ALA GODORT Bernadine Abbott Hoduski Founders Award.

Readex/GODORT/ALA Catharine J. Reynolds Award

Recipient: Debora Cheney

The 2001 award is given to Debora Cheney in support of her work to create a new, comprehensive style manual entitled, Citing Government Information Resources. This will represent the 3rd edition of The Complete Guide to Citing Government Information Resources: A Manual for Writers & Librarians. The revised edition of The Complete Guide was published by Congressional Information Service in 1993, and is now out-of-print. The 3rd edition will include a wide range of formats; it's scheduled for publication in July, 2002.

The nomination letters cited the impact of the previous editions of The Complete Guide and its renewed relevance in the electronic environment to information professionals and the government documents community, as well as to scholars, researchers and students. One nominator stressed the importance of this tool, and predicted that its revision would "contribute significantly" to the development of essential citation standards for web-based government publications, information and databases, including commercially-published resources. As before, this revamped and detailed version will appear under the aegis of the American Library Association's Government Documents Round Table.

Ms. Cheney is currently Head of the Social Sciences Library at the Paterno Library, Pennsylvania State University, in University Park, Pennsylvania. She also serves as its U.S. Documents Librarian and political science selector. From 1991 through 1997, she was the Head of the Documents/Maps Section at Penn State's Pattee Library. Ms. Cheney regularly contributes thoughtful and thought-provoking articles to the professional literature on government information and librarianship; she is a member of the Advisory Board of the Journal of Government Information; and she recently held the position of Associate Editor of the journal for a three-year period. She is a committed teacher and instructor, and has successfully promoted the use of government information in her own institution and beyond. She has been active in GODORT for a decade, and was commended by a nominator as a "leader in the development of electronic access to government information."

James Rettig, in a review of the 1993 edition of The Complete Guide, done by Diane Garner and Diane H. Smith, with contributions by Debora Cheney and Helen Sheehy, called it a "model of clarity," and claimed that reference librarians should alert patrons to its existence along with the Chicago Manual of Style and another guide entitled, Electronic Style [Wilson Library Bulletin 68 (February 1994): 77-78]. Ms. Cheney is the ideal professional, writer and researcher, to prepare Citing Government Information Resources, and to receive this award in support of her efforts. It will be a superior product, and as heavily used as its predecessors.

David Rozkuszka Scholarship

Recipient: Kristine Kasianovitz

The 2001 scholarship recipient is Kristine Kasianovitz. Kris is currently enrolled at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Graduate School of Library and Information Science. While attending UIUC she is working as a graduate assistant in the Government Documents Library. Prior to enrolling in UIUC, she was a Library Assistant in the Government Information Department at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) for 5 years, assuming ever increasing responsibilities. Her basic responsibilities were varied and many, including collection management, hiring, training, and supervising student workers, serving as liaison between the Technical Services Division and the Government Information Department, maintaining and assisting in the development of Web pages for the Department, and providing assistance at the Reference and Government Information Desk.

Kris' dedication to government information began during her tenure at UCI and has been reinforced by her studies at UIUC. When she first began working at the UCI Libraries, she did not know that she would choose librarianship as her future career. Her special interest is in public services and working with information seekers. "I find it satisfactory that I am able to take an active role in a person's pursuit for information and that I am working to uphold the basic tenets of free and open access to information to all." She also has a strong interest in increasing the use of government information. She states, "I feel that the wealth of primary source materials and research that the government produces are greatly underused. I would like to find a creative and appealing way to show students and community users from all disciplines and backgrounds how pertinent, relevant, just plain fascinating the world of government information is." Kris additionally is concerned about issues relating to archiving online data and publications.

Upon obtaining her degree, Kris states that she actively plans to "seek out a position where I can utilize my skills and knowledge of government information, be it in an academic or public setting." Further evidence of Kris' dedication to the field of government information can be seen in her e-mail address, "documentsdiva."

Kris plans to complete her degree at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in December, 2001.

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Document revised May 22, 2001.