Hugh C. Atkinson Memorial Award

(ACRL/ALCTS/LLAMA/LITA)

This award honors the life and accomplishments of Hugh C. Atkinson by soliciting nominations and recognizing the outstanding accomplishments of an academic librarian who has worked in the areas of library automation or library management and has made contributions (including risk taking) toward the improvement of library services or to library development or research.

Winners receive a cash award and a plaque. This award is funded by an endowment created by divisional, individual, and vendor contributions given in memory of Hugh C. Atkinson. The award is jointly sponsored by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS), the Library Leadership and Management Association (LLAMA), and the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA).

The nominee must be a librarian employed in one of the following during the year prior to application for this award:

  • University, college, or community college library
  • Non-profit consortium, or a consortium comprised of non-profits that provides resources/services/support to  academic libraries

The nominee must have a minimum of five years of professional experience in an academic library or in a non-profit consortium or a consortium comprised of non-profits.

Visit ACRL's Atkinson Award page for complete information on submission procedures, deadlines, and contact info.

The following distinguished people have received the award to date:

  • Richard M. Dougherty, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 1988
  • Thomas J. Michalak, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, 1989
  • Russell Shank, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 1990
  • Donald E. Riggs, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI,  1991
  • Miriam C. Drake, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 1992
  • Richard DeGennaro, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 1993
  • Dorothy D. Gregor, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 1994
  • Nancy L. Eaton, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 1995
  • Thomas W. Schaughnessy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 1996
  • William Gray Potter, University of Georgia, Athens,GA,  1997
  • Arnold Hirshon, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, 1998
  • Susan K. Nutter, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, 1999
  • Kenneth Frazier, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI,  2000
  • Larry Frye, Wabash College, Crawfordsville, IN, 2001
  • Harold W. Billings, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 2002
  • Wendy Pradt Lougee, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 2003
  • Jerome Yavarkovsky, Boston College, Boston, MA, 2004
  • Paul M. Gherman, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 2005
  • Nancy M. Cline, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 2006
  • James G. Neal, Columbia University, 2007
  • no recipient 2008
  • Ray English, Oberlin College, OH, 2009
  • Paula T. Kaufman, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2010
  • Carol A. Mandel, New York University, 2011
  • John F. Helmer, Orbis Cascade Alliance, 2012
  • Lizabeth A. Wilson, University of Washington, 2013
  • Anne R. Kenney, Cornell University, 2014
  • Brian Schottlaender, University of California-San Diego, 2015
  • James L. Mullins, Purdue University, 2016
  • Mark Sandler, Novel Solutions Consulting, 2017
  • Larry P. Alford, University of Toronto, 2018

Visit the LITA Awards & Scholarships page for information on additional LITA awards