Hoffman and Costello win the 2011 ACRL IS Innovation Award

CHICAGO— Kimberly Davies Hoffman, associate librarian for reference and instruction, and Michelle Costello, reference/instruction, education and instructional design librarian, at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Geneseo, have been selected to receive the 2011 Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Instruction Section (IS) Innovation award. Hoffman and Costello received the award for developing LILAC (Library Instruction Leadership Academy), a collaborative professional development project designed, organized and delivered by regional K-12, community college and college/university librarians. Sponsored by ProQuest, the annual award recognizes a project that demonstrates creative, innovative or unique approaches to information literacy instruction or programming.

A prize of $3,000 and a certificate will be presented to Hoffman and Costello during the 2011 ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans.  

“The IS Awards committee chose the LILAC project for the ACRL IS Innovation Award because of the creators’ ‘think locally’ approach to professional development in challenging economic times,” said Elizabeth Kocevar-Weidinger, award committee co-chair and instruction/reference services librarian at Longwood University. “Producing this model for regional professional development opportunities for information literacy pedagogy for educators and librarians provides all of us with a refreshing, innovative look at how we can learn and network locally. Furthermore, in a truly collaborative spirit, the project planners were inclusive in their approach, seeking the expertise of K-12 and higher education librarians and educators. In its purpose, content and potential for widespread use, LILAC is truly an innovative contribution to advancing pedagogy in information literacy and instruction librarianship.”

Hoffman earned her BS in French and international relations from the University of New Hampshire in 1995 and earned herMLIS from the University of Buffalo in 1997.

Costello earned her BS in psychology and elementary education from St. John Fisher College in 1990 and earned her MLIS from Syracuse University in 2007.

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ACRL is a division of the American Library Association (ALA), representing more than 12,000 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. ACRL is on the Web at http://www.acrl.org, Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ala.acrl and Twitter at @ala_acrl.