(This article reprinted from New England Libraries, Vol. 3, No. 5: June, 2007.)
NETSL Awards Two for Technical Services Excellence
by Christina Bellinger
This year the NETSL Board faced a conundrum as we tried to decide between two finalists for the annual Excellence Award: Catherine Willis, Technical Services Manager of the Boston Public Library, and Lisa Palmer, Librarian, Technical Services Department, University of Massachusetts Medical School's Lamar Soutter Library. Faced with the overwhelming evidence of each librarian's excellence, the Board decided to give the award to both finalists. The awards were presented at the spring conference, "Re-imagining Technical Services", held at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts on April 13.
Lisa and Catherine are both obviously worthy of the award, while their endeavors are distinctly different. Catherine's work may be characterized as more traditional, if one can use such a term in library work these days. Her focus has been on advocating for technical services to ensure the best public services in the face of "blistering staff cuts" and simultaneously cleaning up and converting the records for one of the oldest research collections in the United States, just to mention a few of her accomplishments. Scholars everywhere will benefit from her leadership in adding this wealth of resources to the World Wide Web. Meanwhile, Lisa was setting up an institutional repository for the UMass Medical School, taking charge of the Lamar Soutter Library website, becoming certified as a NACO participant, making her library one of the NACO medical funnel libraries, publishing in professional journals and being a leader in professional organizations. Her work brings special expertise to the national authority file and increased access to important medical information to users everywhere.
The NETSL Board congratulates Catherine and Lisa for their fine accomplishments.