The University Libraries’ Employee of the Month award is intended to recognize the special effort of faculty, staff, or student employees. The award is granted at the discretion of the Associate Director for Administration. To nominate an employee, please email a letter of support to John.Culshaw@colorado.edu.
April 2012 Employee of the Month:
Teresa Gergen, Metadata Services
Submitted by Helene McHendry, Metadata Services
I would like to nominate Teresa Gergen for Employee of the Month. Teresa is a serials cataloging specialist and spends her time here cataloging new serials, cataloging serials for Special Collections, upgrading national records and contributing them to OCLC as part of CONSER Cataloging Cooperative. In addition, Teresa also is participating in a number of special cataloging projects. These include cataloging Gov Info and Special Collections materials so they may be moved off-site, verifying and fixing holdings for the Archives newspaper collection, and re-cataloging some of our left-over latest entry cataloging records to the national standard of successive cataloging. Teresa is the first person I go to after I have written procedures. She reads them over, makes sure they are clear and then takes them “out for a test ride.” She always gives me great feedback that helps our many projects run so smoothly. Teresa and I have worked together for more than 15 years. In all that time she has always happily accepted every new project and work change with both an open mind and open hands. She is truly an asset to the Libraries.
March 2012 Employee of the Month:
Betty Grebe, Business Library
Submitted by Gene Hayworth, Business Library
I am very pleased to nominate Betty Grebe for the University Libraries Employee of the Month. Betty started at the University Libraries in Acquisitions and also worked in ILL before coming to the Business Library in 1995. She has been with the Business Library for sixteen years, and in that time she has played a significant role in supporting many changes. Betty has forged important relationships with our colleagues in the Leeds School of Business, and she has developed a reputation for her knowledge of the collection and her willingness to assist faculty, students and staff in using library materials effectively. She is often called upon to serve as our “institutional memory” and her knowledge of our collection is invaluable.
Betty supervises one Tech II and approximately 13 student employees. She has managed to create an efficient, diverse team of individuals who work well together and respect one another's differences. Betty thinks ahead when interviewing students, often hiring new students in the summer in order to have them trained before the fall semester begins. She has created an atmosphere of congeniality that has allowed us to retain the majority of our student workers for the entire four years of their studies here. But Betty is also clear about her expectations and uses clear judgment when evaluating student performance. The fact that two of her student workers have gone on to attend library school is a testament to Betty's leadership ability and the fact that she encourages students to pursue librarianship as a career is to be commended. Betty has a thorough knowledge of circulation processing and does an excellent job of working with patrons to resolve problems.
Betty effectively manages the student budget and reports the budget in a timely manner. She never goes over budget and communicates any issues effectively. She monitors the circ desk schedule and makes sure that it is covered at all times, even when she has to cover when a student is absent due to illness or other reasons. In addition to staffing the circulation desk, Betty provides reference throughout the course of the week, both on the reference desk and during her office hours. She is very self motivated when it comes to learning our databases and other resources, and answers reference questions thoroughly and courteously.
Betty is always willing to take on new projects and her enthusiasm is much appreciated. Last year, she also took on the responsibility for supervising the book paging and article delivery services, and this year helped make the transition to the "New Campus Purchasing System," without any disruption to our operations. She takes a real interest in our collections and often offers great suggestions for possible purchases. She is a real asset to the University Libraries.
February 2012 Employee of the Month:
Diana Anderson, Original Cataloger, Metadata Services
Submitted by Windy Lundy, CMS
I would like to nominate Diana Anderson for Employee of the Month. Diana is a valued original cataloger on the Monographic Team in MS who is responsible for cataloging new monographic acquisitions in many languages and on all subjects. She creates bibliographic records according to the standards of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging, creates and enhances name and series authority records for the national authority file through the Name Authority Cooperative (NACO), and submits subject heading and classification proposals to the Library of Congress. In 2011, the Monographic Team experienced the retirement of one original cataloger and the resignation of another. Their departure means that Diana currently has the responsibility of the bulk of the original cataloging for new acquisitions and she does a great portion of the NACO work derived from the work of the copy catalogers. In addition, she does original cataloging for projects in Special Collections and is currently working on the Alan Scuba Photobook Collection. Diana also does database maintenance and authority work resulting from the monthly and original basefile reports we have received from Backstage Library Works, our authority control vendor. She is a member of the RDA Task Force and was involved in our participation as an informal participant in the RDA U.S. National Test. Diana cheerfully advises other catalogers on their bibliographic and authority questions. Remarkably, she does all of this in two days a week!
January 2012 Employee of the Month:
Megan Lambert, Preservation
Submitted by Kay Moller, Preservation
Megan Lambert has been a terrific asset to our department and the Libraries. I've been meaning to nominate her for Employee of the Month for some time.
She's taken on a number of special projects, and has always handled them effectively and efficiently. She has a creative mind and has come up with a lot of great ideas.The Lebowitz project requires a lot of special handling from our department, and Megan has been the one supervising the students who work on them and pack them to be shipped to Pascal.
Megan also created a system for tracking the work and keeping our statistics current. She helps train and often oversees the students performing a wide variety of repairs and other tasks. She's very good at training students; they find her approachable and always willing to answer their questions.
In 2010 she worked on Preservation's part of the WWI digitization project, and Holley Long had this to say about her:
"Megan has been an invaluable member of the WWI digitization project team. Megan is always pleasant to work with and very knowledgeable about the details of the project. Most recently, she prepared and packed over 900 items-- a complicated operation that involved close attention-to-detail and coordination with co-workers across various departments. I really appreciate Megan's hard work on this project and would like to recognize her for her contributions to the Libraries."
When Music Special Collections decided to have boxes made for over 1,000 items, Megan took it on, going there to measure the books and order the boxes from the commercial bindery, and labeling the boxes here when they arrived.
All of these special projects have been in addition to her regular duties repairing books, which she does beautifully. She has juggled all these commitments gracefully and cheerfully, and is always willing to take the time to track down a book that's urgently needed for reserves or rushes. People in other departments often tell me how helpful and knowledgeable she is. She has taken on additional duties a number of times, to cover for absences or for positions temporarily unfilled.
As of February 1, Megan will be in a new position in Access Services, heading her own unit called Circulating Collections Care. She and her student employees will take care of all the books that can be mended quickly to get them on their way. She'll still stay in M150 and work closely with Preservation, but has already started planning and organizing her new operation. I know she'll do an excellent job.
