Ross Atkinson award given to Stephen Bosch

CHICAGO—The Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) is pleased to name Stephen Bosch, materials, budget, procurement, and licensing librarian at the University of Arizona, as the 2019 recipient of the Ross Atkinson Lifetime Achievement Award. The award honors the memory of Ross Atkinson, a distinguished library leader, author and scholar whose extraordinary service to ALCTS and the library community-at-large serves as a model for those in the field. The citation and monetary award, generously sponsored by EBSCO Information Services, will be presented at the ALCTS Awards Ceremony on June 22, 2019, during the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference & Exhibition in Washington, D.C.

Stephen Bosch’s 35 years at the University of Arizona Libraries has been central to their emergence as a leader in innovative collection strategies, frequently emulated by other research libraries. Stephen began as acquisitions librarian and coordinator for collection development in the humanities, was promoted to head of the acquisitions and collection development department, then served as information access librarian and finance and administrative services librarian. Since 2001, Stephen has served as the Materials, Budget, Procurement, and Licensing Librarian. 

Stephen has a long history of service to ALCTS and other professional associations. He has served on dozens of ALCTS committees and groups, including chairing the ALCTS Acquisitions Section and the Chief Collection Development Officers of Large Academic Libraries Discussion Group. He has been on the editorial boards of Library Resources & Technical Services and Collaborative Librarianship, participated in task forces of the Association of Research Libraries and NISO, and served on numerous publisher advisory boards, including the Institute of Physics and Oxford University Press. He has published extensively, primarily on innovative acquisition and collection strategies. He was the lead author on three ALCTS Acquisitions Guides, including The Guide to Licensing and Acquiring Electronic Information. He has written periodicals price surveys widely relied on by librarians for budget forecasting and published in Library Journal and The Library and Book Trade Almanac annually since 2010.

As a strong advocate for cooperative collection efforts, Stephen was the first Senior Advisor of the Center for Research Libraries’ Global Resources for Science, Technology, and Engineering Collections. He has held leadership roles in the Western Regional Storage Trust (WEST) and the Greater Western Library Association (GWLA). Stephen is regularly invited to speak at the ALA, NASIG and Charleston national conferences, has presented webinars for ALCTS, Library Journal and NISO, and is a popular speaker at state and regional conferences and symposiums. Stephen is a pioneer of evidence-based collection decisions, particularly for demand-driven monographs, and his presentations have inspired other libraries to adopt more data driven processes for collection development.

Stephen received the ALCTS Harrassowitz Leadership in Library Acquisitions Award in 2006. He holds a B.A. degree from Marietta College, an M.A. and Ph.D. in Chinese history and an M.L.S. from the University of Arizona.

The Association for Library Collections & Technical Services is the national association for information providers who work in collections and technical services, such as acquisitions, cataloging, collection development, preservation and continuing resources in digital and print formats. ALCTS is a division of the American Library Association.