Federal Librarian, Vol. 29, No. 3, Spring 2011

federal librarian

Contents

Greetings From the Presiden t
FAFLRT Award Nominations Due: April 18, 2011
FABULOUS FEDS
Maneuver Center of Excellence Library Established

Greetings From the President:    

Social Media for FAFLRT

In my Fall 2010 “Greetings” article, I mentioned that moving forward on social media tools for use by the FAFLRT community was a high priority for my presidency. Social media tools like blogs, Twitter, and Facebook have become integral communications channels for individuals, associations, and businesses looking to converse, connect, and promote their activities. In 2008 FAFLRT launched a variety of social media tools, including a blog, Facebook Fan Page, and a Twitter account in an attempt to provide information of interest to the federal librarian community, outside of the traditional email list serve, website, and newsletter.

At the ALA Midwinter meeting in San Diego, the FAFLRT membership reinforced the importance of moving forward on the social media initiatives we began in 2008. In particular, the membership endorsed continued use of Facebook, the President’s blog and the Google Groups list. Unfortunately, since the fall of 2010 our social media initiatives have languished and have not been actively used to engage with FAFLRT membership and the federal librarian community. This is due to the fact that there is no individual or group within FAFLRT responsible for ensuring that our social media tools are actively promoted, refreshed with new content, and, ultimately, of interest and engaging to our community.

In an effort to reinvigorate our social media presence FAFLRT will establish a new Social Media Committee. This will be a great opportunity for masters’ students and new professionals to get involved in FAFLRT as the work of these volunteer positions could be done completely virtually. We envision 3-5 individuals on the Social Media Committee and responsibilities would include maintaining and updating our current social media sites on Twitter at http://twitter.com/faflrt, on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/FAFLRT-The-Federal-and-Armed-Forces-Libraries-Round-Table/85430152045, and the FAFLRT President Blog at: http://www.faflrt.ala.org/president/. Most likely we would also want to rename the blog to reflect that posts are coming from the membership and not just the president. The Social Media Committee would take the lead in identifying content of interest to the FAFLRT and federal librarian communities, posting content on a regular basis, and promoting our presence on social media platforms. The Committee would also keep FAFLRT members informed of new social media tools that we can partake of. We would love to hear from members interested in forming a Social Media Committee and welcome your ideas in how to go forward communicating with our membership and community.

If you are interested in joining the Social Media Committee, please contact me ( kdeb@loc.gov) or Federal Director, Kim Lyall ( kim.lyall@gmail.com)

Karl Debus-Lopez, President and Kim Lyall, Federal Director

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FAFLRT Award Nominations Due: April 18, 2011    

FAFLRT is fortunate to have talented and knowledgeable professionals who make substantial contributions to librarianship and the Federal information community. Your dedication is also helping to ensure the future of Federal librarianship. FAFLRT provides a number of opportunities to recognize profession excellence and also support and encourage the next generation of librarians through several special awards:

The FAFLRT Distinguished Service Award recognizes a FAFLRT member for outstanding and sustained contributions to FAFLRT. The FAFLRT Achievement Award recognizes an individual for achievement in the promotion of library and information service and the information profession in the Federal community. FAFLRT membership is not required but only FAFLRT members can make nominations.

The Federal Librarians Adelaide Del Frate Conference Sponsorship Award is given to a library school student who has an interest in working in a Federal Library. The selected student receives an award of $1,000 to support attendance at the next ALA Annual Meeting. Students who are currently enrolled in any ALA-accredited library school, who do not already have an ALA accredited degree, and who have expressed an interest in some aspect of Federal librarianship are eligible. Students nominate themselves for this award and must provide a letter of reference.

The Federal Librarians Cicely Phippen Marks Scholarship is given to a library school student who has an interest in working in a Federal library. The student will receive a scholarship award of $1,500. Students who are currently enrolled in any ALA-accredited library school, who do not already have an ALA accredited degree, and who have expressed an interest in some aspect of Federal librarianship are eligible. Students nominate themselves for this award and must provide a letter of reference. For more information about FAFLRT awards and/or to complete an online nominations form, visit: http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/rts/faflrt/initiatives/awards/index.cfm

FAFLRT Awards Committee:
Shirley Loo, 202-707-6785 or sloo@crs.loc.gov
Maria Pisa, 301-504-5834 or maria.pisa@ars.usda.gov


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FABULOUS FEDS    

Ms. Jessica Hernandez, Librarian at the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) Biosciences Library received the 2011 3M/NMRT Professional Development Grant to attend the ALA Annual Conference.

Ms. Karen Cooper joined the staff of the National Defense University Library on 14 February as a research librarian working on the MERLN program.

National Defense University Librarians Ms. Julie Arrighetti, Ms. Lily McGovern, and Ms. Karen Cooper presented a poster at Catholic University’s “Bridging the Spectrum” Symposium on 25 February. The title of their presentation was “Securing the Future of National Strategy Documents” and it chronicles the work they did creating an archive of U.S. National Security documents. The archive, which is available on the NDU Library’s MERLN (Military Education Research Library Network) website (http://merln.ndu.edu) is a comprehensive collection of official U.S. Government strategy documents, including National Security Strategies dating from the Reagan Administration to the present day, Military and Defense Strategies, Quadrennial Defense Review reports, and strategies focusing on terrorism, homeland security, cyber security, and Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). All these strategy documents are brought together in one location, enhanced by a full-text search feature to facilitate in-depth research.

Congratulations to Mr. James King, National Institutes of Health (NIH) Library’s Information Architect in Bethesda, MD, who has been named as one of SLA’s 2011 Fellows. Mr. King is investigating new services and processes to help provide even better service to the over 5,000 clinicians/researchers and 15,000 support personnel at NIH. This has recently focused on creating Virtual Research Environments based upon the Drupal platform. The NIH Library’s first Drupal-based site, the Pandemic Influenza Digital Archive, a site being built around a collection of historical texts about the Pandemic Influenza of 1918, is being built from the ground up as a virtual collaboration space for historical influenza virologists.

Previously, Mr. King spent over 18 years at the Naval Research Laboratory’s (NRL) Ruth H. Hooker Research Library, using his IT background to transform the NRL Research Library from a print-based library to a cutting-edge digital library, and was instrumental in broad-reaching consortium negotiations with all major scientific information providers. He has a Master in Library & Information Science from Catholic University of America (2002) and a Bachelors of Computer Graphics from Salem International University (1989). Mr. King has served on several industry library advisory boards, has received the SLA Innovations in Technology Award, and was the 2010 President of the DC/SLA Chapter and is the Convener of the SLA Information Futurist Caucus.

Congratulations to Ms Karen Huffman, also named a 2011 SLA Fellow. Ms. Huffman has been involved not only with SLA but also several local and distance library school programs. She has worked 25 years for National Geographic Society in various roles. She is currently a member of the Software as a Service (SaaS) team in the Information Systems & Technology division, supporting the enterprise and its business needs through hosted, cloud-based solutions such as Google Apps for Business. Her recent external involvement includes chairing the Knowledge Management Division in 2010 for the Special Libraries Association ( http://wiki.sla.org/display/slakm/), participating as an advisory board member for University of Buffalo’s library program, and consulting on the technology courses and competencies offered by Catholic University’s library program. Ms. Huffman’s specialties include facilitating communication and engagement strategies through knowledge management techniques and collaborative models, streamlining and managing workflows to improve business processes, and training and development.

For additional details on educational background, contributions to our profession, and personal interest, visit her website: www.cybersailors.com/vitae.html

Ms. Deborah Balsamo, the National Program Manager for the U.S. EPA’s Library Network, was the guest speaker for
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science (SILS) winter commencement on December 19, 2010. A SILS alumna (MSLS ‘97), Ms. Balsamo was presented with the School’s prestigious Distinguished Alumna Award at that event, joining an elite group of accomplished information professionals. She has worked at EPA libraries in a variety of roles since 1998, and has served as the National Program Manager since 2007.

Ms. Aimee Babcock-Ellis is a new federal librarian with the Drug Enforcement Administration, part of the Department of Justice. She began in November 2010 and graduated from the University of Maryland College of Information Studies in August 2010.

The Navy General Library Program announces two new Librarians. Mr. John Shewfelt, a past participant of the Navy Fleet & Family Readiness Internship Program joined the staff at NAS Corpus Christi. Ms. Diane Fulkerson has joined the staff at NSF Dahlgren, VA.

Yokota AFB Library in Japan announces a new reference librarian, Mr. Ian F. Finnesey. He is a recent graduate of the University of Arizona and began in January 2011.

Ms. Karen N. Keene is the new Supervisory Librarian at Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque, NM, effective October 19th.

Ms. Kathleen Hanselmann, Library Director at RAF Lakenheath Base Library announces that their library has been named the United States Air Force Europe (USAFE) Library Program of the Year for 2010. They also won this award in 2009 and are working on winning the award again in 2011.

Ms. Carolyn J. Ray, STINFO Officer at Wright-Patterson AFB, OH retired in February 2011. Her new contact information will be cjray49@att.net.

The Army Library Program would like to recognize Mr. Tim Edwards, Ms. Gloria Miller, and Mr. Paul Fritz of US Army Materiel Command (AMC) Library Program for establishing a single contract for AMC-wide access to industry specifications and standards. The DoD Standardization Program Office named the AMC team one of the 2010 winners. The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Systems Engineering, will present the award to Mr. Edwards in the Hall of Heroes in the Pentagon on 16 March 2011.

Ms. Alice Roberta Roy, 64, passed away January 23, 2011. Ms. Roy was a retired an Air Force Command Librarian for the Strategic and Tactical Air Command.

The Army Library Program announces with sadness the news of Ms. Yolanda Miller’s passing on December 27, 2010 in Huntsville, AL. She was a dedicated Army librarian who served in a number of different Army libraries for over 20 years. Ms. Miller earned an MSLIS from Simmons College in 1984 and entered federal service as a librarian at the Combined Arms Research Library in 1986. For the next 20+ years, she worked in many Army libraries as she followed her husband, on his Army assignments. These travels led her to work in the Academy of Health Sciences Library, Fort Sam Houston Post Library, Fort Monroe Post Library, TRADOC Command Library Office, Schofield Barracks’ SGT Yano Library, and finally in the Pentagon Library, from which she retired in 2008. In the course of her career, Ms. Miller provided reference service, selected integrated library systems, served as hospital ward librarian, moved library collections, and promoted each library and served her patrons with a smile, creativity, and great enthusiasm. She touched many lives in the course of her career and leaves many friends and colleagues who recognize and appreciate her significant contributions to Army libraries and the Army community.

Cynthia Shipley

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First Rising Star: Aimee Babcock-Ellis, Librarian at DEA    

Aimee has always wanted to be a librarian. She graduated from the University of Maryland at College Park for her Masters of Library Science in 2010. While there, she worked as a Graduate Assistant at Nonprint Media Services Library as well as various part-time positions ranging from a law firm’s library to a hospital library. Aimee is a 2007 American Library Association (ALA) Spectrum Scholar and a 2010 Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Career Enhancement Fellow. Her passion is health literacy for people from underrepresented populations. Aimee started her first professional position as a librarian at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)’s library in November 2010. She does a little bit of everything in the small library, including reorganizing the library’s intranet site, some ILL, and spends a majority of her time on research assistance and reference. Her colleagues regard her as a real ‘mover and a shaker,’ and in the short time she has been at DEA, Aimee has begun reaching out to and organizing other new federal librarians. In fact, she has been instrumental in spearheading the NewFeds Facebook Group and Federal Library and Information Center Committee (FLICC) initiative, and has a significant leadership role in this new group. This is in addition to her committee work and leadership involvement in ALA and the Special Library Association (SLA), among several other organizations. Some things Aimee enjoys is attending conferences, meeting future librarians as well as other information professionals, and telling people how cool library and information science is.

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Maneuver Center of Excellence Library Established    

“Oh the Grunts and the Tread heads should be friends
Oh the Grunts and the Tread heads should be friends
One of them walks the ground, the other plows it down
But that’s no reason why they can’t be friends”

Tanks again at Fort Benning:

The Donovan Research Library, Fort Benning, GA, and the US Armor Research Library, Fort Knox, KY, with a combined 150+ years of rich Armor, Calvary and Infantry history, became the Maneuver Center of Excellence Library Division on 1 October 2009 as part of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission’s decision to move the Armor School to Fort Benning.

The Armor School Research Library has completed its move from Ft Knox into a new facility in the Harmony Church area of Fort Benning. Bill Hansen and his staff at Fort Knox oversaw the packing up of the collection ensuring that all items were secure on the moving trucks. Armor staff at Harmony Church was at the ready when the material arrived. (Pictures of new Armor School Library, Harmony Church)

Library will open for users on 14 March 2011.

The MCoE library staff would like to thank the Armor Staff at Fort Knox for the dedicated years of helping the Armor School students, staff, faculty, researchers and the Fort Knox Community with superb service. The quality of service rendered at Ft Knox will not be diminished as the Armor School Library starts a new beginning at Ft Benning. Please come visit one of our libraries or check out our website and virtual branch http://www.benning.army.mil/library

Staff at MCoE:

Ericka Loze-Hudson - Director MCoE Libraries, promoted from Infantry Librarian

Sherrie Floyd – Infantry Librarian, promoted from Infantry Reference Librarian

Genoa Stanford – Infantry Reference/Virtual Librarian, promoted from library Technician

Linda Nix – Library Technician, transferred from Ft McPherson Library, GA

Sharlene Carter – Armor Librarian, transferred/promoted from Ft Campbell Library, KY

Janice Haines – Armor Reference Librarian, transferred/promoted from Aviation Library, Ft Rucker, AL

Towana Barnett – Library technician, transferred from the National Infantry Museum/worked previously at library in Babenhausen, GE

By Ericka Loze, Director

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