Dr. Christine Berg

Joelene Swearingen presents Dr. Christine Berg with the Community Spirit Award

Late last year, and following from the earlier orientations, the library was invited to participate in one of the Program in Occupation Therapy’s courses. The OT liaison and faculty met to develop a proposal to support the research needs of the students in OT 5451 – “Research and OT: Preparing for Evidence Based Practice.” The library section involved a team-taught approach including several librarians, and included assignments that would compliment and support the research assigned to students. The plan emphasized the development of student’s ability to ask a “clinical question” and use a variety of resource databases to find answers. The designed curriculum also included a pre- and post-test to measure current knowledge and expected improvements.

The outcomes of the post-test provided evidence that there was a marked difference in the students’ research skills and knowledge of available tools, and that overall student proficiency improved. This curriculum effort will help students who are then assigned a year-long research project which requires them to utilize the acquired research skills.

In celebrating this successful partnership between the library and the Program in Occupational Therapy, that helped pull together two key aspects of our Strategic Directions namely, “enhancing partnerships” and “supporting curriculum integration” the Becker Library presents Dr. Christine Berg with a Community Spirit award.

Susan Fowler

Susan Fowler receives her Outstanding Performance Award from Committee chair Neville Prendergast

That the St. Louis Children’s Hospital medical library has become much more than a satellite library in the Becker Library system is due in large part to the efforts of librarian Susan Fowler.

A more collaborative partnership has been formed between that library and Becker. More SLCH staff are involved in using the hospital’s library and Becker resources than ever before and SLCH nurses now feel like they have a champion for their information needs.

The SLCH blog, which logged 650 hits in May 2008, now records the most page views among our library blogs. Additionally, the blog was noted by the Krafty Librarian as a creative way to get around restrictive hospital IT departments, and used as an example in a technology board at MLA ’08.

Susan has partnered with the hospital’s nursing staff on a presentation at a recent conference of Neonatal Nurses and has contributed posters to the most recent MLA and MCMLA meetings. Having made the commitment to attend early morning grand rounds, Susan’s efforts are paying off after several months and now physicians and nurses routinely recognize her contributions by not only contacting her for information needs, but also by the many complimentary notes they send to her and her hospital supervisor.

Susan Fowler, the Becker library staff is proud of your efforts, and offers the Outstanding Performance award in recognition.

Marla Hardwrict

Marla Hardwrict accepts her Community Spirit Award from Bob Engeszer

A appreciative Becker colleague wrote, “We can count on her every day without fail, even when her department requires extra work done elsewhere. She works with much care and attention to details, which is very important in a place that houses old, valuable, and fragile material.”

Even though these are not her regular duties, Marla Hardwrict took upon herself several additional tasks, such as regularly cleaning the stacks and the vault, keeping the kitchen area in the work room tidy, and wiping every horizontal surface she could put her hands on. Requests for additional jobs that need to be done with short notice are not scoffed at – including major cleaning after shifting rare books or after preservation procedures, quick help in the King Center for lectures and special events, or doing furniture set-up for a class.

With a good sense of humor Marla graciously talks with staff every morning, and is very tactful to consider when someone is intensely working in the room.

In recognizing this dependability and positive attitude, where no request has to be repeated twice and no tasks are forgotten, the Becker Library gratefully presents Marla Hardwrict with a Community Spirit award.

Erna Holland

Erna Holland receives her Outstanding Performance Award from Committee member Sandy Hoffmann

With the recent reorganization of the Reference and Circulation Desks, and subsequent creation of the Information Services Desk, some staff have been called upon to provide the much needed assistance to make the idea of a “single service desk operation” work. This support includes, in addition to the regular tasks that came with the position, providing more reference support than was previously required. The added responsibility has been acquired, and an excellent job of providing efficient relevant support to our users, both in person and on the phone, is being done. These added tasks are being performed with a professionalism that reflects well upon the role of the library in our medical and research community.

In recognition, Library staff and friends present Erna Holland with an Outstanding Performance award.

Daniel Klosterman

Committee member Rose Kettler presents the Outstanding Performance Award to Daniel Klosterman

With the recent reorganization of the Reference and Circulation Desks, and subsequent creation of the Information Services Desk, some staff have been called upon to provide the much needed assistance to make the idea of a “single service desk operation” work. This support includes, in addition to the regular tasks that came with the position, providing more reference support than was previously required. The added responsibility has been acquired, and an excellent job of providing efficient relevant support to our users, both in person and on the phone, is being done. These added tasks are being performed with a professionalism that reflects well upon the role of the library in our medical and research community.

In appreciation of this effort, Daniel Klosterman is presented with an Outstanding Performance award.

Jason Lauderdale

With the recent reorganization of the Reference and Circulation Desks, and subsequent creation of the Information Services Desk, some staff have been called upon to provide the much needed assistance to make the idea of a “single service desk operation” work. This support includes, in addition to the regular tasks that came with the position, providing more reference support than was previously required. The added responsibility has been acquired, and an excellent job of providing efficient relevant support to our users, both in person and on the phone, is being done. These added tasks are being performed with a professionalism that reflects well upon the role of the library in our medical and research community.

Becker Library colleagues invite Jason Lauderdale to accept an Outstanding Performance award.

Ruth Lewis

Marysue Schaffer presents the Community Spirit Award to Ruth Lewis

The promotion of Scholarly Communication endeavors is one of the key elements of the Library’s strategic initiatives. It was found to be even more crucial to make this effort a campus-wide one and so a key person representing the Danforth Campus Libraries would bolster our efforts to leverage opportunities to benefit all parties at the Washington University campus.

That key person was found and the efforts and responsibilities included chairing several committees with librarians representing both campus libraries, developing a joint Scholarly Communications web site, coordinating joint resource development, and working with the office of Research on behalf of NIH-funded authors at the Danforth campus. Additionally, the numerous tasks involved responding to questions from NIH-funded authors at WUSM as well, when needed.

These collaborative efforts have allowed for a more structured and cohesive approach to the issues surrounding scholarly communications and resulting in resource-sharing to provide sustainable services and tools for our users.

In recognition of a viable collaborative effort to further our Strategic Directions, Becker Library presents this Community Spirit award to Ruth Lewis, biology librarian at the Olin Library, Danforth Campus.

Nathaniel Potts

Committee chair Neville Prendergast presents the Outstanding Performance Award to Nathaniel Potts

In early spring 2008, as the efforts to enhance and solidify a more involved partnership between Becker Library and the St. Louis Children’s Hospital were escalating, it was evident that assistance was needed by the SLCH staff librarian. A member of our evening circulation staff was offered to provide some basic help as outlined by the given needs. That staff member gladly accepted the additional work effort. However, his efforts far exceeded the initial proposal.

In his own efficient way, Nathaniel Potts did some badly needed shifting of the book shelves, and in the process discovered out-of-date and mis-cataloged items that were brought to the librarian’s attention. This resulted in SLCH providing a collection that is up-to-date in all subject areas. Additionally, the task of segregating the book collection by subject area was undertaken – resulting in an SLCH print collection that is easier for patrons to browse and contributing to the increased circulation of that collection.

In recognition of invaluable skill, diligence, and ingenuity that have made the SLCH medical library more up-to-date, efficient, and easier to use, the library recognizes Nathaniel Potts with an Outstanding Performance award.