LSU Libraries has bestowed three awards on library employees for 2018. The winners are: Jennifer Abraham Cramer, receiving the Staff Award; Emily Frank, receiving the Early Career Librarian Award; and Linda Smith Griffin, receiving the Carolyn H. Hargrave Senior Leadership Award.

The LSU Libraries Staff Award recognizes a non-faculty staff member who has demonstrated exceptional accomplishment through job responsibilities and service to the LSU Libraries and the library community. They must also have demonstrated outstanding achievement and maintained excellent relations with library employees and library users in their service. The winner of the 2018 award, Jennifer Abraham Cramer, is the Director of the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History. Some of the projects Cramer has directed and which the award recognizes include the Mossville project; the Georgetown 272 project; an AgCenter project related to the 100th anniversary of the Cooperative Extension program; a CWPPRA and Louisiana Sea Grant project resulting in the travelling exhibition “I Remember,” addressing the loss of coastal wetlands; and various projects related to Louisiana women involved in the environmental movement. In addition, Cramer has served since 2010 as the editor of the The Oral History Review journal and has held several offices within the Oral History Association.

The Early Career Librarian Award recognizes an LSU Libraries faculty member who has demonstrated exceptional accomplishment in the Libraries through initiative, creativity, and ability to make a significant contribution to the library within the first six years of his or her career. The 2018 winner of this award, Emily Frank, worked for nearly five years as the library’s Engineering & Instruction Librarian. In this position, she conducted approximately 250 personal research consultations in engineering as well as other subject areas, in addition to her other instructional and job duties.  In her recently acquired position as Coordinator of Scholarship and Open Access, Frank is administrator of the library’s Open Access Author Fund. In this role, she encourages LSU faculty to publish in open access journals by providing financial grants to cover publication fees. This newly-created program has already awarded eight grants. Frank also works with the LOUIS consortium to promote open education resources (OER) and has served as a fellow on the LOUIS and Board of Regents OER Curriculum Alignment Project, as well as the Affordable Learning Task Force. In addition, Frank has co-authored nine chapters and has participated in 27 conference presentations.

The Carolyn H. Hargrave Senior Leadership Award recognizes an LSU Libraries faculty member who has demonstrated exceptional leadership through job responsibilities, research, and service. The award is named in honor of Dr. Hargrave, whose outstanding academic leadership in higher education created LOUIS, the consortium for resource sharing among Louisiana academic libraries. The 2018 winner of this award, Linda Smith Griffin, worked at LSU Libraries from 1985 to 1995 as a Library Associate before obtaining her Master of Library Science degree in 1996, after which she began her career as a librarian at LSU. Throughout her career at the Libraries, Griffin has served in various positions, the most recent of which is Head of Cataloging. Griffin has made numerous contributions to leadership in the Libraries, including heading the Resource Description and Metadata Services department. Griffin has served as a mentor both formally and informally within the LSU community, chaired committees, served in leadership positions at the university and at national organizations, and regularly presented at conferences. Additionally, she has served on the LSU Admissions, Standards, and Honors (ASH) committee; been a faculty advisor for the MLK Commemorative Committee; and served as president of the Black Faculty and Staff Caucus at LSU. Griffin also served on the Executive Board for the African and African American Studies Program at LSU and has won numerous library leadership and university awards.

Congratulations to the highly accomplished, well-deserving winners of the 2018 LSU Libraries employee awards!