ACRL announces Community College Award winners

Contact: Mary Ellen Davis


312-280-3248

ALA News Release


For Immediate Release


March 2001

ACRL announces Community College Award winners

Cary Sowell, head librarian of the Northridge Campus Learning Resource Center at Austin Community College in Austin, Texas, and the Tompkins Cortland Community College (TCCC) have been selected as the 2001 Community College Award winners.

Sowell has been selected as the 2001 winner of the Community and Junior College Libraries Section (CJCLS) EBSCO Community College Learning Resources Leadership Award.

The award honors significant achievement in the advocacy of learning resources, as well as leadership in professional organizations that support the missions of community, junior and technical colleges.

"Cary has served on and chaired many CJCLS committees, as well as being active in many committees and divisions throughout Texas," Committee Chair Marcia Ostrowski said. "In addition, she has designed and created three LRCs, developed cooperative programs with local school librarians, mentored new librarians and served on many faculty committees."

TCCC has been chosen to receive the 2001 CJCLS/EBSCO Community College Learning Resources Program Achievement Award for its two-day workshop, "Detectives in the Classroom," developed by Instructional Services Librarian Barbara Kobritz. The workshop gave both college faculty and area high school teachers information about how to involve students in real-life, multidisciplinary information problem-solving.

"This program updates educators about incorporating components of information literacy into their curricula." Ostrowski said. "We recognize the TCCC library staff for providing leadership in showing faculty how students experience the library, and demonstrating the need for information literacy in the academic system."

A citation and $500 (donated by EBSCO Information Services) will be presented to each recipient at the CJCLS Business Meeting during the 2001 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in San Francisco.

For more information about ACRL awards, visit the
ACRL Web site or contact Mary Ellen Davis, executive director, ACRL at 800/545-2433, ext. 3248 or
mdavis@ala.org.

ACRL, a division of the ALA, is the only individual membership organization in North America that develops programs, products, and services to meet the unique needs of academic librarians. It is dedicated to enhancing the ability of academic library and information professionals to serve the information needs of the higher education community and to improve learning, teaching and research.