College Library Honored with Division of Student Life Partnership Award

College Library and its staff were recognized for work with both the LGBT Campus Center and the McBurney Disability Resource Center at the Division of Student Life Partnership Award ceremony on Tuesday, May 19.

Carrie Kruse and the College Library staff as a whole were recognized by the LGBT Campus Center with their Partnership Award for work on diversity and inclusion at the library. In presenting the award, Gabe Javier noted that, “College Library has made an investment in creating inclusive spaces and practices for LGBTQ people all year.” He singled out the leadership of Carrie Kruse, Director of College Library; Trisha Prosise, Late Evening Public Services Librarian; and Eliot Finkelstein, Instruction Coordinator, for “taking the initiative to build a team of interested staff who worked with the LGBT Campus Center on training projects.” According to Gabe, “this team put together the first set of gender and sexuality inclusivity training that included mandatory and optional components for a full professional staff.” He acknowledged that the work at College Library had influenced other potential partners, including the General Library System, who are now interested in pursuing similar training.

Meanwhile, Carrie Nelson was presented an award by Todd Schwanke, Assistant Director of Adaptive Technology Services at the McBurney Center, who noted that “Carrie is a person who just gets accessibility … which comes from her library background and an underlying belief that everyone deserves access to information.” Carrie has worked on a variety of projects with the McBurney Center including access to e-books, the close-captioning library materials, document conversion, and more recently Web issues, particularly in her leadership role on the CIC IT Accessibility Group.