Connolly and Golderman receive inaugural ACRL CLS ProQuest Innovation in College Librarianship Award
Contact: Megan Griffin
ACRL Program Coordinator
(312) 280-2514
mgriffin@ala.org
NEWS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 10, 2009
CHICAGO – Bruce Connolly and Gail Golderman of the Union College Schaffer Library in Schenectady, N.Y., have been named the 2009 recipients of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) College Libraries Section (CLS) ProQuest Innovation in College Librarianship Award. This annual award, which is being presented for the first time in 2009, honors an ACRL member who has demonstrated a capacity for innovation in working with undergraduates, instructors and/or the library community.
Connolly and Golderman will share the $3,000 award, which ProQuest will present along with a plaque at the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in Chicago during the CLS program at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, July 12.
“The committee chose Bruce and Gail as this year’s award recipients for their innovative sharing of audio files through iTunes in a variety of contexts that support students, faculty and the library,” said award committee chair Stacy Voeller, associate professor and electronic resources librarian at Minnesota State University - Moorhead. “While they have encountered obstacles during both the development and implementation of their program, Connolly and Golderman have overcome those obstacles creatively. Their efforts demonstrate ongoing innovation using a popular and student-centric technology.
“Steven J. Bell, former CLS chair, said it best in his recent comments in Urban Library Journal,” Voeller continued. “ ‘Universities and their libraries are making use of iTunes University, but few have discovered so many ways to use standard iTunes software and the iTunes store to connect the library with the classroom. While there may be nothing particularly innovative about using iTunes today, what these librarians have done with it shouts out innovation and creativity.’”
The award selection committee commended the Schaffer Library’s ongoing exploration of the potential applications of iTunes and other software applications as a marketing tool for the library’s collections, as a teaching tool in a variety of courses across the curriculum, as a venue for supporting multiculturalism and diversity on campus and for stimulating ideas among library staff on weaving technology into a variety of library and curricular initiatives.
Bruce Connolly is head of public services at Schaffer Library. He has made presentations on music file sharing in academic libraries at the ACRL/NY and Internet Librarian conferences. Connolly has written on various aspects of Apple's iTunes software for Serials Librarian, Computers in Libraries and netConnect, where he writes the quarterly eReviews column with Gail Golderman. He is a 1977 graduate of the SUNY at Albany, School of Library and Information Science.
Gail Golderman is digital services librarian at Schaffer Library. She has presented at numerous conferences and contributes to a variety of publications, including Journal of Internet Cataloging, Reference Librarian, Magazines for Libraries  and netConnect, where she writes the quarterly “eReviews” column with Bruce Connolly. She is a 1992 graduate of the SUNY - Albany School of Library and Information Science and is actively interested in online social networking, integrating technology with the learning process and collaborative endeavors between teaching faculty, IT staff and librarians.
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The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) is a division of the American Library Association (ALA), representing nearly 13,000 academic and research librarians and interested individuals. ACRL is the only individual membership organization in North America that develops programs, products and services to meet the unique needs of academic and research librarians. Its initiatives enable the higher education community to understand the role that academic libraries play in the teaching, learning and research environments.
