Awards

Derek has served ALAO for years and in various capacities, including as TEDSIG cochair, as the programming lead for the Speculative Design and Libraries project; as an ALAO web manager; as the 'ALAO wizard' that lead the way in making the 2020 conference virtual and amazing, and as the recipient of the Special Presidential Commendation in 2020. The recipient’s nominator said the following about him:

'He promotes the most creative thinking and curiosity within librarianship, information and communities. He leads with important questions, but then collaborates with others to see the group's answers and ideas come to fruition - this is evident in his role as TEDSIG co-chair and through his many years of leadership on the webmaster's team and conference planning committees. He has dedicated a lot of time ensuring ALAO looks good online and that our programs and people are promoted within the state and beyond. He took on a leadership role every time as a webmaster and refreshed ALAO programming as TEDSIG co-chair.

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Mark has a history of providing mentorship to his colleagues and to new professionals. One of the colleagues that he has mentored said,

Being a new librarian, I had many questions, and Mark was there from the beginning to coach me through thorny faculty and student interactions. He provided an array of strategies from collection development to instruction techniques, all while encouraging me to find my own path and develop my own relationships and abilities. I heartily recommend Mark for the Kathryn L. Venditti Mentoring Award as he truly brings out the best in those surrounding him.

In addition to serving as a mentor for ALAO's own mentoring program, he has mentored 10-15 undergraduate students from Notre Dame College for summer internships over the past 10 or so years. He also frequently works with graduate LIS students completing their practicum. A Kent State library science student that the recipient recently supervised said,

Mark was incredibly welcoming; he sat down with me to talk through my goals and lay out a specific plan. He introduced me to everyone at [the library ] and helped to walk me through the ins and outs of information literacy instruction. His guidance definitely helped me to develop the skills and confidence I needed to become a professional and to secure my first job in an academic library.

Finally, the nominator, attests:

To see that he has volunteered to work with so many students demonstrates his ongoing commitment to service and mentoring the next generation of professionals. It is clear to me through his actions and his own words that Mark genuinely enjoys developing and supporting new librarians. I hope the committee will find him to be worthy of the honor of the Kathryn Venditti Mentoring Award.

Truly, this recipient embodies the enthusiastic spirit toward mentorship that this award represents.

Ken has demonstrated an imaginative and sustained commitment to the use of new technologies and his programming chops will have a positive impact on academic libraries and our students. For example, the MyGuide research dashboard proactively connects every student and faculty member at Miami University with customized library resources derived from LibGuides APIs catered to the student's majors and the classes they're taking according to the university's authentication system (while preserving their privacy). Students are also saving thousands of dollars from the innovative integration of Springshare's LibCal with Adobe and Apple licensing APIs to circulate short-term software licenses. This allows libraries to maintain an affordable number of software licenses, while legally and efficiently sharing those licenses among students. Best of all, through Ken's presentations and the sharing of his projects via open-source code repositories, this year's TEDDY award winner gives Ohio's TEDSIG community the right to use, study, change, repurpose, and build upon this amazing foundation.

$2000 for 'Flipped Classrooms for One-Shot Library Instruction in Remote Teaching (in the time of COVID)'