Jeanette Smith receives the 2013 Ken Haycock Award for Promoting Librarianship

CHICAGO — Jeanette C. Smith, the grants/university relations officer at the New Mexico State University Library in Las Cruces, has been selected to receive the 2013 American Library Association Ken Haycock Award for Promoting Librarianship. This special honor is given annually to an individual for “significant contribution to the public recognition and appreciation of librarianship through professional performance, teaching and/or writing”.

“It is with distinct pleasure that the 2013 Award Jury recognizes Jeanette Smith for her exemplary and special achievements in the field of Library and Information Science,” said Ernest A. DiMattia, Jr., chair of the Ken Haycock Award Committee and president of The Ferguson Library in Stamford, Conn. “Jeanette is well deserving of this distinguished honor and continues to work tirelessly for the advancement of our profession.”

Smith holds Master of Arts degrees from both the University of Minnesota – Duluth and the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. Since graduating in 1973, she has spent almost four decades working in the library field and has amassed an impressive record of accomplishments and recognition. Her work in public services, technical services, public relations, contributions and grants is widely known and has benefited a broad range of organizations. She has been involved with public and academic libraries, and has reached the rank of distinguished achievement professor at the New Mexico State University Library.

She has spent most of her library career at the New Mexico State University Library, where she has, among other positions, been head of Government Documents, and is now Grants/University Relations officer. She has, for many years, served on the administrative council for the Southwest and Border Cultures Institute, which she helped to create in 1998. Additionally, she has been the recipient of the 1999 Edmund Lester Pearson Library Humor Award, has chaired the Zuhl Library Naming Celebration at the New Mexico State University, which received a John Cotton Dana Library Public Relations Award, and has been named a Fellow of the Molesworth Institute for her library humor research. Smith has served the American Library Association as a member of the Advisory Committee for American Libraries.

As noted in the nomination submitted on her behalf, “Smith has given extensively to the library profession, and has now brilliantly promoted library history and librarianship through her book, "The Laughing Librarian: A History of American Library Humor," which truly is the first study of its kind.” Published in 2012 by McFarland Publishing, her monograph examines the elements of humor in librarianship between 1876 and 2000. It is described as illuminating different types of librarians – the collector, the organization person, the keeper, the change agent – and explores stereotypes attributed to the field.

Members of the 2013 Ken Haycock Award Jury are: Nancy Dickinson, Hillsboro Elementary School, Hillsboro, Tenn.; Amy Nicole Roberson, Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas; Teri R. Switzer, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Colo.; and Ernest A. DiMattia, Jr., (Chair), Ferguson Library, Stamford, Conn.

The 2013 Ken Haycock Award for Promoting Librarianship will be presented to Jeanette Smith at the Award Ceremony and Reception on June 30, during the Annual conference in Chicago.

The deadline for submission of applications for the 2014 Ken Haycock Award for Promoting Librarianship is December 1, 2013. Guidelines and application forms are available on the ALA web site.