For immediate release | June 14, 2024

Congratulations to the 2024 Winners of the Core Career LIFT Award

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The 2024 recipients of the Core Career LIFT Award, starting in the upper left corner moving clockwise: Kristin Lansdown (sponsored by OCLC), Enito Mock (sponsored by OCLC), Rachel Wells (sponsored by Lyrasis), and Anne Morgan (sponsored by EBSCO).

CHICAGO--
Congratulations to the 2024 recipients of the Core Career LIFT Award. The recipients are:

Kristin Lansdown
LIFT Award Sponsored by OCLC

In her position as the Librarian and Inclusion, Diversity, Equity & Accessibility (IDEA) Coordinator, Kristin serves on the University Library’s Administration Team and Library Council.

As an early career librarian, Kristin is looking for opportunities to expand her network with a focus on moving into leadership. She notes that she “has worked diligently to develop strategic partnerships … to promote retention for low-income, first-generation, and students of color.”

When notified she had won, Kristin responded, "I'm so honored to receive the Core Career LIFT Award! Thank you for recognizing and celebrating the work I do every day. As an early career librarian, I’m grateful for the Core LIFT Award's support in pursuing professional development opportunities to expand my network and broaden my leadership skill set."

Kristin plans to use the funds to attend ACRL 2025 in Minneapolis next year.


Enito Mock
LIFT Award Sponsored by OCLC

As the Assistant Director of Acquisitions at the New York Public Library, Enito shared a story of their very inclusive leadership style. They emphasized a need for PEACE (Proactive, Equity, Accountability, Communication and Cooperation, and Evaluation) in order to have a safe and equitable environment for the entire team. Enito plans to use the award to further their education in Acquisitions and management including continuing goals to learn more from colleagues and other professionals in technical services.

In response to receiving the award, Enito said, "I am very humbled and honored to receive the Core Career LIFT Award this year and thrilled for the opportunity to learn from distinguished library and information professionals about their work and passions."

With this award, Enito plans to take advantage of the many course offerings available through the ALA eLearning website, including the Fundamentals of Cataloging course and networking opportunities at future conferences such as the Core Forum this Fall. They are especially excited about participating in LibLearnX 2025 in Phoenix, Arizona, where they’ll participate in hands-on workshops and engage in meaningful dialogue with librarians from all over the world.


Anne Morgan
LIFT Award Sponsored by EBSCO

Anne’s goal is to continue to develop professionally as an early-career librarian in her current role as Metadata Librarian at Villanova University. In order to improve her skills, Anne would like to be more involved with ALA by attending conferences and learning opportunities. In anticipation of moving the library to a new building, Anne is participating in a massive weeding project at her library that includes a lot of physical labor as well as work to make sure the records are correct in their Folio catalog.

Upon learning that her application was selected, Anne said, “I'm very grateful to receive this award and for the financial support. My goal is to continue to develop professionally as an early-career librarian, and to continually improve my metadata management skills. I believe that membership in Core and ALA is important in order for me to do this. Accordingly, I plan to use the award funds for multiple years of ALA and Core membership dues, in addition to other professional development opportunities.”


Rachel Wells
LIFT Award Sponsored by Lyrasis

As an early-career Reference Librarian at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Rachel is focused on gaining skills and seeking professional development opportunities. Rachel provided an impressive chart that broke down exactly how she’d spend the money from the award to further her participation in ALA and Core and to further her knowledge by taking courses in the Fundamentals series offered by Core. By working in a specialized museum, it requires more persuasion to acquire needed funding for the library, especially including professional development for the few library staff members. Rachel was also named a 2023 Core Emerging Leader.

Upon her acceptance, Rachel said, “I am honored and humbled to be selected for the 2024 Core Career LIFT Award! I am looking forward to using the funds to attend future ALA events and pursue continuing education courses.”

Core is dedicated to cultivating and amplifying the collective expertise of library workers in core functions and we recognize the importance of the everyday work of our practitioners. Recipients receive $1,500 to attend an ALA conference, the Core Forum, or to take a continuing education class to grow their skill sets and careers. The award is designed to support information professionals whose passion, actions, and everyday work warrants recognition and celebration. We honor the critical labor that goes into organizing, managing, and maintaining core library services. LIFT stands for Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures.

Applications for the 2025 Career LIFT Award will open in January.

Members of the 2024 Core Career LIFT Award Committee are: Gabrielle Wiersma (chair), Jennifer Donner, Robin L. Ewing, Amy I. Kornblau, Timothy Ryan Provenzano, Kelly J. Sattler, Mea Warren.


About Core
Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures is the national association that advances the profession of librarians and information providers in central roles of leadership and management, collections and technical services, and technology. Our mission is to cultivate and amplify the collective expertise of library workers in core functions through community building, advocacy and learning. Core is a division of the American Library Association. Follow us on our Blog, Instagram, or LinkedIn.


About OCLC
OCLC is a nonprofit global library cooperative providing shared technology services, original research and community programs so that libraries can better fuel learning, research and innovation. Through OCLC, member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the most comprehensive global network of data about library collections and services. Libraries gain efficiencies through OCLC's WorldShare, a complete set of library management applications and services built on an open, cloud-based platform. It is through collaboration and sharing of the world's collected knowledge that libraries can help people find answers they need to solve problems. Together as OCLC, member libraries, staff and partners make breakthroughs possible.

About EBSCO Information Services
EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) is a leading provider of online research content and search technologies serving academic, school and public libraries; healthcare and medical institutions; corporations; and government agencies around the world. From research, acquisition management, subscription services and discovery to clinical decision support and patient care, learning, and research and development, EBSCO provides institutions with access to content and resources to serve the information and workflow needs of their users and organizations. For more information, visit the EBSCO website at: www.ebsco.com.


About Lyrasis
Lyrasis is a community-supported non-profit whose mission is to support enduring access to our shared academic, scientific and cultural heritage for archives, libraries, museums and research communities. With more than 80 years of experience, Lyrasis offers technologies, services and special programs designed by and for knowledge professionals and brings together more than 3000 collections-holding organizations worldwide for collaboration, innovation and scale. Lyrasis is the organizational home to ArchivesSpace, BiblioLabs, CollectionSpace, DSpace, Fedora, VIVO, ORCID US and The Palace Project. For more information, visit the Lyrasis website at: www.lyrasis.org.

Contact:

Amber Robbin

Membership and Marketing Manager

Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures

arobbin@ala.org