By Judith Kolata, Information Specialist at Nuveen Investments

Editor's Note: Anybody who attends one of the Chapter's December meetings feels the holiday warmth. The Union League Club is one of the nicest holiday party venues in the city. The Dec. 5 meeting was also devoted to celebrating those individuals whose achievements have made the Chapter a better organization for their colleagues. In a ceremony led by the Chapter's Awards Committee, Judith Kollata presented awards to those members and described their contributions. Her remarks follow.

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The Awards Committee is happy to continue the tradition of honoring the achievements and dedication of our outstanding members this evening. We received numerous nominations and we want to thank everyone who drew our attention to the contributions of our colleagues, both to our Chapter and to the larger professional community.

We begin by honoring two of our newer members with the Up and Coming Award. This award is presented to a relatively new Illinois Chapter member who, through work and professional involvement, shows promise of becoming an outstanding member of the profession. We have two recipients this year. Unfortunately neither could be with us tonight, but we want to highlight their contributions.

Up and Coming Award: Kristen Shea

The first recipient “has already had great outcomes on behalf of SLA Illinois -- always very enthusiastic, a great planner, and always full of ideas.” She is Kristen Shea. Kristen has been lauded for streamlining the vendor relations processes for the Illinois Chapter – making it easier for vendors to support us, their customers, and us to be in a better position to garner their support. Kristen also organized a student forum for one of the SLA monthly meetings this year, finding vendor support herself for the meeting. She has been an SLA member since 2005, and she has just accepted a new position at Bibliovault, a subdivision of University of Chicago Press. She’ll be one of two people in charge of creating the web-ready pdfs of books from various university presses. We congratulate her.

Up and Coming Award: Joanne Kiley

We were so impressed with the work of another young member, who has been instrumental in creating networking opportunities for our members that we opted to name a second Up and Coming Recipient. You know her as the organizer of the Chapter DineArounds, which ping members of the chapter together in dynamic and fun settings and bolster camaraderie. We are pleased to honor Joanne Kiley. Joanne has been a member of our Chapter since 2003. Her work in libraries started as an after-school job in the children's department of the public library in Davenport, Iowa, and she has spent her entire professional library career at Michael Best & Friedrich as the manager of the Chicago office.

Library Communications and Marketing Award: Judy Eckoff Alspach

This award goes to Judy Eckoff Alspach for her work on the SLA-Illinois News and Events which helps Chapter members stay on top of our calendars. Judy has been described as “our steady, consistent, Rock of Gibraltar communicator.” The pacing of her communications is just right, not too many, and not too few. We have all grown accustomed to relying on her clear, concise, and constant communication. Judy has been a Chapter member since 2006. She is the International Resources Project Coordinator at the Center for Research Libraries.

Professional Development Award: Lorene Kennard

Described as an “Innovator and idea-generator” the winner of this year’s award hosted two Chapter professional development seminars in the last year. The first was investing for retirement; the second focused on how search engines such as Google and Yahoo can be used as investment tools. Lorene Kennard is the recipient. Lorene has been a member since 1999. After years at Morningstar, Lorene has courageously gone out on her own recently, establishing Walnut Avenue Research, and we wish her well.

Library Partner Award: Buzzy Basch

Long time member and friend of the Illinois Chapter, and Sponsor of our Annual Business Meetings for a number of years, our winner this year is Bernard “Buzzy” Basch. Basch Subscriptions epitomizes the quality serial service which Buzzy has developed during 30 years in senior management positions with Faxon, Turner and EBSCO. Buzzy has co-authored a manual for librarians on serials acquisitions, has authored numerous articles on serials management, and has taught many courses and seminars on serials management topics and issues. In addition, Buzzy has held elected and appointed positions in SLA, ASIS, and ALA, and is currently an SLA Fellow. He is overseas this week, and unfortunately unable to be with us. But we are ever grateful for his support and applaud his service to our profession.

Inspiration Award: Bonnie Sebby

“Marketing ideas whirl in her head continuously and she makes things happen.” This is what’s been said about our next recipient who has earned our Chapter’s Inspiration Award this year. Bonnie Sebby has a passion for our profession and our Chapter. She is in continuous learning mode, seeking the best way to get things accomplished. She developed the idea of inviting Past Presidents to the September meeting and did an inspirational job of reminding us that our present and future is built on the work of those who have gone before. She is currently a Corporate Librarian at Exelon Corporation and we are blessed to have her on our Board.

Outstanding Achievement Award: Karen Krupka

Outstanding Achievement is awarded to an Illinois Chapter member who has exhibited outstanding, unique or beyond-the-call-of-duty service to the Chapter. Karen Krupka is our recipient this year. Karen has served an extended term as Treasurer of the SLA Illinois Chapter, and was instrumental in investigating, implementing, and troubleshooting the online bill payment process that members requested. In addition to contributing significantly in her Treasurer role, she has participated in the ad hoc Recommended Practices Review Committee, crafted and deployed Chapter surveys, provided administrative support to the Board, and served as point of contact for several monthly meetings.

As a veteran member of the Board, she has mentored and advised newer members on policies and procedures. She often is the first to volunteer for a special project and she manages it through to completion. For a number of years as Hospitality Chair, Karen organized our hospitality open houses at the Annual Conference with other Midwest Chapters. “Always willing to help and serve” and “Faithful” are terms of endearment which apply to this year’s award recipient. Karen has been a member since 1985 and is currently the Technical Services Librarian at McGuire Woods.

Distinguished Service Award: Bobbie Goering

“With a serene calmness, sense of humor and proportion, she can solve most any problem in the most logical and peaceful way.” These words have been applied to this year’s honoree who is the Manager of the Exelon Corporate Library. Bobbie Goering has been a Chapter member since 1993 and in that time has helped many in the Chapter with job searches, mentoring, coaching, facilitating, problem solving, and brainstorming. In her term as an officer of the Chapter, she has offered great ideas for meeting topics and suggested the innovative "speed meeting" format for a change of pace.

Often called upon by SLA colleagues for her industry expertise, she's very approachable and willing to share her knowledge. She has the delightful capacity of being utterly comfortable talking with anyone as if they had been colleagues for ever. Someone suggested that it must have something to do with loving blue grass and opera and wearing cowboy boots with dark suits. Ever the innovator, fearless and considerate – Bobbie, we are very pleased to present the Distinguished Service Award to you this year.

Distinguished Member Award: Ellen Kuner

We have a special award to present this year to a woman who exemplifies all the hard work, dedication, ingenuity, and class that characterize the best in our profession. She is Ellen Kuner, who started working for Burson-Marsteller right after library school, and whose many contributions helped to shape the company that Burson-Marsteller is today. She often said that it was the only job she ever had, but pointed out that over forty years it did not stay the same job. Ellen has a deep knowledge of the public relations and media industries. She speaks the language and knows the people. She enjoyed passing along her knowledge through training countless numbers of people worldwide, guiding them through the mysteries of accessing information, both print and electronic. No matter how obscure that nugget of information might be, a call to Ellen would yield the answer, almost before the caller hung up the phone.

She made the leap from print to the online space with grace and agility, always knowing how to use both to best advantage. Her early recognition of the importance of technology led her to play an important role in building Burson’s InfoDesk, an intranet system that continues to this day, but was begun before we were all talking about “knowledge sharing”. Ellen joined SLA in 1973 and has a long list of Leadership Roles in Chapter offices and committee chairs throughout her career. She is a Past President of our Chapter, an organizer of the Boston Annual Conference in 1996, has served as Chair of many committees including Strategic Planning, and is currently an SLA fellow. Ellen, congratulations on your many accomplishments. You make us proud!

Contact Judith Kolata at Judith.Kolata@nuveen.com.