The Technical Services Special Interest Section Awards Committee is pleased to announce that the recipient of the 2016 Renee D. Chapman Memorial Award for Outstanding Contributions in Technical Services Law Librarianship is Ellen McGrath.
Ellen is the Head of Cataloging at the Charles B. Sears Law Library at the University at Buffalo. By approaching work with a “can do” attitude, she has made extraordinary contributions to our profession through her professional memberships, presentations, publications and mentoring.
She has a lengthy record of outstanding contributions and leadership to the Technical Services Special Interest Section, the Online Bibliographic Services Special Interest Section and the American Association of Law Libraries. She has served as a member of all three of the TS-SIS’s Membership, Bylaws and Handbook, and Awards Committees. She has also been a member of the Standing Committee on Cataloging and Classification and its working groups, including its Subject Analysis Advisory Working Group.
Ellen has served as OBS-SIS Member-at-Large (1997-1999), OBS-SIS Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect (1999-2000) and OBS-SIS Chair (2000-2001). Her service included membership on the following OBS-SIS committees: Education, Nominating, Strategic Planning, Local Systems, OCLC, and Web Advisory. She also served on the 2001 Annual Meeting Program Selection Committee and was appointed to serve as the AALL Liaison to the American Library Association’s Subject Analysis Committee (SAC) in 2011-2012.
In addition to her leadership roles, Ellen is a knowledgeable and creative program coordinator, moderator, and speaker. Her presentations at conferences and meetings are always timely, practical, and well received. She has either presented at or coordinated a program at eight different AALL Annual Meetings or Cataloging Institutes, one ALA meeting, and six different regional meetings. Ellen has also been a dynamic contributor to the Program for Cooperative Cataloging, through its NACO and CONSER programs.
Ellen’s scholarly publications include authoring the monograph Guidelines for Cataloging the Files Available Through Lexis in the AALL Occasional Papers Series. Her 2014 Law Library Journal article, “A Century’s Worth of Access: A Historical Overview of Cataloging in Law Library Journal” helped to raise the profile of cataloging and technical services activity within the AALL community. She had two articles published in Cataloging & Classification Quarterly. She also regularly contributes to the OBS/TS program reports and roundtable reviews in the Technical Services Law Librarian(TSLL). She has written more than 18 informative articles for the ALLUNY Newsletter, and she has written numerous book reviews for several library journals. She was a catalyst for the TS/OBS-SIS Research Roundtable in 1995, coordinated the roundtable from 1995-1999 and helped Brian Striman to convince TS and OBS to fund the Joint Research Grant now known as FROG (Funding Research Opportunities Grant).
Ellen is the co-founder of the popular TSLL TechScans blog which began in 2007. She served on the TSLL Editorial Board from 1988-1990, and was a peer-reviewer for Journal of Library Innovation.
In addition to her academic contributions, Ellen is actively involved in volunteer and community projects. She has participated in the AALL Mentor Project for many years. She has served as an influential supporter to many budding librarians. She has supervised six library school students with their practicum or special projects at the University at Buffalo Department of Library & Information Studies.
Ellen’s willingness to share her knowledge with others is just one of her many admirable traits. She is never the loudest person in the room, and the majority of her work is often behind the scenes. She works efficiently and leads with organization. You could not find anyone better than Ellen to serve on your committee, or better yet, to lead your committee.
Ellen demonstrates an exemplary commitment and dedication to serving her profession and her colleagues. The TS-SIS Awards Committee is pleased to recognize Ellen McGrath with this award.
Congratulations Ellen!
2015-2016 TS-SIS Awards Committee
Ismael Gullon, Chair
Carol Morgan Collins
Cate Kellett
Kent Milunovich
George Prager
Akram Sadeghi Pari
Barbara Szalkowski