Corporate - Press Info - Press Releases
2nd Annual Karen Hunter Memorial Award call for nominations
Award recognizes collaborations between librarians and publishers or librarians advancing information dissemination via technology
New York, May 3, 2019
Elsevier, the information analytics business specializing in science and health, announced today the call for nominations for the 2nd Annual Karen Hunter Memorial Award. The award recognizes demonstrated evidence of the desire to encourage collaborations between librarians and publishers, or exemplar experience with advancing information dissemination via technology. Awardees receive $5000 and travel support to attend the Hunter Forum at the annual ALA Mid-Winter Meeting in Philadelphia, PA from January 24-28, 2020.
The Elsevier Karen Hunter Memorial Award was established in 2018 to honor Karen's legacy. In her four decades at Elsevier, Karen led groundbreaking initiatives in scholarly communications in partnership with the research community. You can read more about Karen and her contributions here.
"There is no better way to honor Karen's Hunter's legacy than to issue an award to a librarian or ensemble of librarians who demonstrate leadership in applying technology to scholarly communications, or who have partnered with a publisher to advance the sharing of research findings," according to Jean Shipman, Vice President, Global Strategic Networks, Elsevier.
The inaugural award was presented to the University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries team during the 2018 ALA Mid-Winter Meeting. A team of librarians worked on applying APIs to provide full-text journal articles - both version of record and author manuscripts - via its institutional repository (IR) to highlight the over 8,000 publications per year of the faculty of the University of Florida. The project saved faculty time and helped them with meeting funder compliance requirements, as it eliminated the need for them to individually contribute their publications to the IR. The project also saved library staff time as they did not have to solicit the articles from the faculty.
How to submit nominations and notification schedule
Demonstrated evidence can be a project, a product, a publication, a program event, a testimony, or other form of collaboration between librarians and publishers or a technological advancement. The collaboration or technological development does not need to be related to Elsevier.
The awardee is selected by Elsevier's North American Library Advisory Board (NALAB), and it is issued at the Hunter Forum, American Library Association (ALA) Mid-Winter meeting. Award criteria include being:
An accredited/degreed professional librarian or group of librarians.
Currently employed within the United States.
Any kind of librarian – e.g., academic, government, school, public, medical or special.
Able to attend Elsevier's Hunter Forum to accept the award and participate in the Hunter Forum if requested.
Willing to say a couple words of award acceptance at the Hunter Forum.
Nominations are due midnight US Pacific Standard Time, July 31, 2019. The nomination should be sent to Jean Shipman at j.shipman@elsevier.com and include: a cover letter stating nomination justification and by whom; the nominee's qualifications as they relate to the award criteria; the nominee's CV; and two to three letters of support from colleagues. The awardee will receive notification of their selection no later than the end of November 2019. This will provide the awardee time to register and participate in the 2020 Hunter Forum, usually held at the ALA Mid-Winter meeting.
Tom Reller
Vice President, Communications
t.reller@elsevier.com