UW's Wilson Named ACRL Librarian of the Year
-- Library Journal, 2/13/2007
Lizabeth (Betsy) A. Wilson, dean of University Libraries at the University of Washington (UW), is the 2007 Association of College and Research Libraries' (ACRL) Academic/Research Librarian of the Year. Wilson will be publicly honored with the award, sponsored by YBP Library Services, on Thursday, March 28 at the opening keynote during the ACRL 13th National Conference in Baltimore. "Betsy has been recognized as a pioneer and leader throughout her career, particularly in the areas of information literacy, assessment, and collaboration," said award committee chair Mark Winston, associate professor, School of Information and Library Science, at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He noted that the UW Libraries received the 2004 ACRL Excellence in Academic Libraries Award.
One nominator championed Wilson, writing, "Betsy envisioned and built a model assessment program, created strong collaboration with faculty in the classroom on information literacy and alliances with IT to produce the UWired service." Another cited her role "in the merger of Orbis and Cascade, two groups that operated separately in Oregon and Washington to create the regional consortium of the Orbis Cascade Alliance in 2003," and her effort with technology companies like Microsoft to form the Digital Futures Alliance in 2005 to deal with long-term preservation issues. She was also praised for her role, chairing the OCLC Board of Trustees, in furthering the merger of RLG into OCLC.
