April 26, 2018

The Drexel University Libraries’ 9th Annual Library Celebration Awards proved to be a big success, with every seat in the conference room in the W. W. Hagerty Library taken as over 35 staff and guests gathered to honor and celebrate their colleagues’ exceptional work over the last year.

The event – held Tuesday, April 24, 2018 – started off with a breakfast reception for attendees to enjoy, followed by an awards ceremony presented by Danuta A. Nitecki, Dean of Libraries.

The Drexel Libraries’ talented and dedicated staff provide critical support for the University’s mission and ambitions to contain the affordability of higher education, to shape future scholarship and to inspire a life-long quest for learning. The Library Staff Celebration Awards honor selected full-time colleagues who have advanced these values through their outstanding accomplishments that exceed expectations and serve as a model for other staff.

The Libraries also honors exceptional student employees with the Jane Bryan Student Worker Awards. This award honors Jane Bryan, director of Drexel University Libraries from 2005 to 2008, who was deeply committed to providing outstanding service to students. The Libraries was pleased to once again welcome members of the Bryan family—Jane’s husband James and son Thomas – who personally congratulated the award recipients and by their presence and generous gift to the Libraries, continue to support the Drexel Libraries contributions to the student experiences.  

This year's event honored four Libraries staff and student workers for extraordinary work completed in 2017.

Congratulations to all our award recipients!

This award is presented to student employees for their outstanding service to the Libraries. It honors Jane Bryan, director of Drexel University Libraries from 2005 to 2008, and her dedication to providing outstanding service to students. This year, the Libraries recognized two student workers.

Gina George, who was unable to attend the ceremony due to her co-op schedule, is an energetic student worker in the Client Services Department.  She goes above and beyond her duties to assist the Libraries’ clients. When a client needs help with printing, Gina will accompany them to the printing station to ensure the successful release of their print job. She is always pleasant and never fails to treat every client with respect and dignity. Gina is always willing and eager to support her student worker peers as well. Staff report that it is a joy to work with Gina, and they value her supportive nature and her professionalism.  We are grateful for Gina’s consistent delivery of the highest quality service to both clients and co-workers. 

Pooja Rajesh Shahis is a trusted, dedicated student worker on the Print Resources and Access Management team, also known as PRAM. Her contributions to the extremely detailed bound journal barcoding project has outpaced that of both her fellow student workers and PRAM staff, and she has barcoded over 180 different journals. Pooja was a quick study to learn the arcane skill of expressing complicated serials holdings. Her accuracy and dependability have impressed staff, and Pooja performs much of her work independently.  Her work has contributed greatly to PRAM’s ability to respond accurately and efficiently to clients’ requests for print materials.

Exceptional Service Award: Javier Arroyo, Specialist I, End-User Technology Support

Javier regularly goes beyond the duties of his position to experiment with new technology, challenge and direct student workers and organize workspaces – efforts that have ultimately made day-to-day operations at the Libraries and within the End User Technology Services (EUTS) department run more smoothly.

Javier enjoys finding new tools and technology and is always happy to share his knowledge with colleagues. Under his guidance, the EUTS department has also had great success employing and encouraging the growth of student workers. Students have repaired laptops, written and interpreted code, and even built a web application to access their work schedules, thanks to Javier’s teaching and support. And to the benefit of Libraries staff, he took the initiative to redesign and organize EUTS’ physical work area, including the department’s workbench, server and storage areas, and hundreds of pieces of EUTS equipment.

These accomplishments demonstrate Javier’s commitment to not only providing the best service to Libraries staff, but also his dedication to seeking innovative ways to maximize the Libraries’ efficient functioning.

Libraries Champion Award: Janice Masud-Paul, Liaison Librarian for Health Sciences Research

Janice consistently engages with her colleagues in the Libraries’ Academic Partnerships and the Data & Digital Stewardship divisions to contribute excellent ideas and enthusiasm to projects to extend the Libraries’ reach to its stakeholders.

For example, Janice recently partnered with the Office of Research and the Dornsife School of Public Health to enhance the instructional materials for the Responsible Conduct of Research course.  Building on the initial work done for the course’s first year, Janice applied her knowledge of research and data to redesign and teach a course segment, expanding the Libraries’ Research Data Management Support initiatives.

She also wrote a LibGuide on Data Repositories, and she participated in the pilot program of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine Middle Atlantic Region to help the Drexel Libraries evaluate and improve its data management services.

Finally, Janice has worked this past year with her library colleagues to create and launch a proposal to embed liaison librarians at the College of Nursing and Health Professions’ 3 Parkway location—and the proposal was approved in a mere three weeks! This quick turnaround is a testament to the strength of the relationships she has built with the College of Nursing and Health Professionals.

Janice’s colleagues find her vigor, her dedication and her humble professional demeanor inspirational when they work together to deliver the Libraries’ programs. As one of her colleagues summed it up, “Janice’s contributions to the Libraries is simply phenomenal. She has been one of the strongest pillars, one of the most outstanding supporters and probably one of the most enthusiastic colleagues in our Library Academic Partnerships Department.”

Members of the 2018 Library Celebration Awards Committee were Diane Kinney, Kumru Kastro, John Wiggins and Sarah Rich.

All photos courtesy of Jaci Downs Photography.