This checklist includes only those tasks specific to chairing the IS Awards Committee and the Dudley Subcommittee. It does not include the generic duties of IS committee chairs outlined on the IS Chairs timetable which incoming Awards chairs should take care to review as early as possible in their term. Also, new IS Awards Committee chairs should review all tip and timeline documents provided by the ACRL Awards Program Officer.
The IS Awards Committee manages three awards: the Ilene F. Rockman Instruction Publication of the Year Award, the Innovation Award, and the Miriam Dudley Instruction Librarian Award.
July-August
- Review committee’s working timeline and charge, available through the Awards Committee web page; make revisions as necessary including checking with ACRL Award Program Office regarding deadlines. NOTE: the award deadline is set by ACRL and should not be changed.
- Include in committee welcome message instructions to review the committee’s charge, award descriptions and selection criteria, and the working timeline available on the Awards Committee web page.
- Dudley: Form Miriam Dudley Instruction Librarian Award subcommittee of IS Past-chair + 2 committee members.
- ACRL sends packet of materials about awards processes to Awards chair and Dudley Award Subcommittee Chair.
Mid-August – Early September
- Send outline of working procedures for specific awards to committee.
- Rockman: Ask for 4 volunteers to do initial literature review, following guidelines from “Reviewing the Literature for Publication Award Candidates” document, within the appropriate date range (e.g., for 2018 awards, date range was January 2016-September 2017). This search will include articles and books.
- Rockman: Volunteers send Awards Chair their list of citations (with abstracts) by deadline (September 30). It helps to have them sent in RIS format, so Chair can organize and eliminate duplicates in a citation management software program.
- Dudley: Solicit nominations from all current IS Advisory and IS Executive members via Advisory and Executive email lists.
September
- All: Draft and submit call for nominations for all awards for the Fall IS Newsletter (see samples in previous Fall Newsletters). Send article to IS Newsletter editors, part of the IS Communications Committee. Announce submission deadline on the IS-ADVISORY list, typically around the 15th. Additionally, include features, e.g., the Q & A, on the previous year’s recipients (See IS Celebration Tip Sheet for more information).
- All: By end of month, send nomination calls for Innovation & Rockman Awards (Dudley chair drafts a separate call) to: ILI-L, LIBREF, UGLi, COLLIB-L, ULS-L, INFOLIT-L, LIRT-L, WESS-L, ANSS-L, STS-L, LES-L, ACRLFRAME and other appropriate lists. Coordinate with the IS Social Media Coordinator to publicize on relevant IS and ACRL feeds.
- Dudley: Please note, a nominator may choose to nominate someone for the award without notifying the nominee. When the Dudley Award Subcommittee receives a nomination, they should contact the nominee for their permission to be considered for the award and to request a current copy of their vita, it is important to keep in mind that the nominations are completely confidential, including names of nominees and nominators, letters of nomination, as well as consideration comments by Awards Committee members.
October
- Rockman: Compile in a single list all titles submitted for consideration by committee members.
- Rockman: Divide committee members into review teams, of two or three members. Ideally, match a veteran committee member with a rookie member. Divide all titles into equal groups and assign them to review teams.
- Rockman: Send list of titles to committee with instructions to begin reading and evaluation. Remind committee of selection criteria outlined on Awards Committee web page.
- Rockman: Remind committee of deadline, which should correspond with ACRL external nomination deadline.
- Innovation: Monitor incoming nominations and answering questions of those seeking to nominate their projects.
- Dudley: Subcommittee reviews names of strong candidates from the previous year’s pool and contacts previous nominators to encourage them to resubmit an updated version of the nomination.
- Dudley: As nominations arrive, the subcommittee will contact the nominee fro their permission to be considered for the award and to request a current copy of their vita.
November
- All: On Nov. 1, send second nomination call for Innovation & Rockman and Dudley Awards to ILI-L, LIBREF, UGLi, COLLIB-L, ULS-L, and others, noting the one-month coutdown to the deadline. Coordinate with the IS Social Media Coordinator to publicize on relevant IS and ACRL feeds. This can include targeted nominations of committee members are aware of excellent nominees.
- Innovation/Rockman: Create a private ALA Connect post for Innovation and Rockman awards, where all nominations will be posted — both internal and external nominations (for Rockman).
- Dudley: Chair should create a private location for Dudley nominations available only to the subcommittee.
December
- Innovation/Rockman: Create a private list of external nominations for Awards to the appropriate ALA Connect page.
- Rockman: PDFs of nominated publications are made available either on a private ALA Connect page or through citation management software, e.g. Zotero.
- Innovation: Nominations are made available in a private, accessible space for committee members, e.g. Dropbox
- All: Send instructions to committee members for final review of all nominations for their assigned Awards. Set deadline for review — typically in the week prior to ALA Midwinter Meeting.
- All: Create online poll where committee members can vote for their top 5-7 Rockman titles, and their top 3-5 Innovation nominations. Post URLs for these in ALA Connect, and email this information to the committee. Dudley subcommittee should schedule a review meeting to discuss nominations.
- All: Notify ACRL Program Officer of the number of nominees for all three Awards by December 9.
- All: Acknowledge receipt of nominations for Innovation, Dudley, and, if applicable, Rockman awards via email.
January
- All: Lead committee deliberation process at Virtual Midwinter Committee meeting to select winners. Virtual meeting takes place prior to the Midwinter Meeting.
- All: Notify the IS Awards Chair and IS chair with the names of the award winners including the Miriam Dudley Award recipient, and announce this selection at the Executive Committee during the virtual Midwinter meeting. [The IS Executive Committee does not approve the recipient of the Dudley Awards]. Remind everyone that the selections are to remain confidential until ACRL issues the press release.
- All: Prior to, or within one week after Midwinter, contact winners by telephone to congratulate them and to obtain information required on ACRL’s Media Profile Form, which is used by the ACRL Awards Program Officer to draft letters of congratulation, press releases, and C&RL News article. (ACRL sends form to Awards Chair via email in December/January).
- All: Draft description of winning project and publication, highlighting qualities that determined their selection. Solicit feedback from committee and finalize. Dudley subcommittee chair should draft description of winning librarian, which is submitted to the ACRL Awards Program Officer.
- All: Within approximately two weeks after Midwinter, complete Media Profile Form and send to ACRL Program Officer (who will send notice of the specific deadline date). Ask the recipient to email you a photo with a resolution of at least 300 dpi) to be included with award publicity. Remind recipients that their selection as the award recipient must be kept confidential until after ACRL issues the press release (which may happen several weeks after Midwinter conference).
February
- All: Draft emails to nominators of non-winning awards applications, notifying them of outcome and thanking them again for their nominations. Do NOT send until ACRL has sent out the official press release.
- All: Draft article on all three award winners for Spring IS Newsletter. Submission deadline will be announced by newsletter editors on the IS-ADVISORY list, and is typically around April 1st. Use the ACRL press release for content, and link to press release in article.
- All: On February 1 , if it is the year of the ACRL Conference (odd years), review the IS Awards Celebration Tip Sheet, available through the Awards Committee web page, and send to IS Chair, Dudley subcommittee chair, and ACRL Awards Program Officer to ensure common understanding of roles.
- All: Write short statements for the Innovation and Rockman winners for the ACRL Conference. If it is the off year, be sure to pass what is written to the next year’s Chair. Dudley subcommittee chair should draft statement on the Dudley Award winner.
- All: For next steps, see IS Awards Celebration Tip Sheet.
May/June
- Dudley: Nominations from previous years will not be retained; however, the Dudley Award Subcommittee chair should pass on a list of names and contact information for strong candidates (and their nominators) to the incoming Dudley Award Subcommittee chair. The incoming chair will contact the past nominator)s) of the strong candidates to encourage them to submit an updated version of the nomination letter.
- IS Awards Chair with Dudley Subcommittee Chair: Write and submit the Awards Annual Report.
Note: For 2018-2019, the IS Awards Committee Working Timeline is considered a pilot mode. The IS Awards Chair and Exec liaison will review the list at the end of cycle to make sure the list is complete and thoroughly explained and will update as necessary.
Drafted June 2007 by Kathleen Gallagher, 2006-2007 IS Awards Committee Chair.
Updated by Susanna Eng-Ziskin, 2014-2015 IS Awards Committee Chair.
Updated by Maoria Kirker, 2017-2018 IS Awards Committee Chair; Jo Angela Oehrli, 2017-2018 IS Awards Committee Vice-Chair; Merinda Kaye Hensley, IS Chair 2017-2018; and Jennifer Knievel, IS Past Chairperson 2017-2018.
