The Texas Digital Library (TDL) recently honored four examples of outstanding digital library work within Texas academic libraries as part of the Texas Conference on Digital Libraries, held April 28-29, 2014, in Austin, Texas. Among those receiving recognition were Dr. Martin Halbert, Dean of the University of North Texas Libraries; Dr. Christine Shupala, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi; the Blocker History of Medicine Collections at UT Medical Branch at Galveston; and a collaborative team at Texas A&M University that worked to publish an important agricultural collection to the HathiTrust Digital Library.
Shelley Barba, Metadata Librarian at Texas Tech University Libraries and Chair of the TDL Awards Committee, announced the awards at an evening reception at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center on April 28.
This set of honorees represent exceptional efforts — across a range of institutions both large and small — to increase access to and meaningful use of the intellectual riches of Texas colleges and universities. They are:
- Scholarly Communications Award: Dr. Martin Halbert (Dean, University of North Texas Libraries) was honored for his significant and far-reaching contributions to the landscape of scholarly communication and Open Access publishing, both in Texas and beyond its borders.
- Award for Excellence in Digital Libraries: The Texas A&M Libraries and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension were honored for their work to develop a novel workflow to prepare and ingest the Bulletin of the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station into the HathiTrust Digital Library. The project team included: Dr. Robert McGeachin, Michael Bolton, Violeta Ilik, Sarah Potvin, Jeannette Ho, Lisa Furubotten, Stephanie Elmquist, Dr. Bruce Herbert, and Dr. Holly Jarvis.
- Trailblazer Award: The team behind the Truman G. Blocker, Jr. History of Medicine Collections in the Moody Medical Library at UT Medical Branch Galveston were recognized for their outstanding work to increase accessibility to its previously underutilized Louis Pasteur Collection, which contains original handwritten letters from Pasteur in addition to other unique and rare items. The project team included Bobby Marlin, Mira Greene, Lisa Reyna-Guerrero, and Kelly Caldwell.
- TDL Service Award: Dr. Christine Shupala (Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi) was honored for her dedicated service to the Texas Digital Library Governing Board and her effective promotion of the TDL and its services on her own campus and at other institutions across the state of Texas.
The TDL Awards acknowledge outstanding digital library work at academic libraries across Texas. Nominations are accepted annually in six categories. Additional information is available on the Texas Digital Library website at http://main.tdl.org/awards.