Mary Lou Breslin Receives Betts Award

Staff changes at Public Health Library

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Mary Lou Breslin Receives Betts Award

Mary Lou Breslin, oral history interviewer on the Disability Rights and Independent Living Movement project, has received the Betts Award for distinguished achievement in enhancing the opportunities for people with disabilities. As a founder and longtime director of the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund. Mary Lou has been a nationally prominent strategist and behind-the-scenes leader in key legal and legislative advances in disability rights, including the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

Mary Lou was a prime mover in helping ROHO and the Bancroft conceptualize and fund the DRILM project. She has conducted numerous interviews for the project and taught a seminar based on the collection, as well as being the subject of a full oral history herself.

The Betts Award comes with a $50,000 stipend. Congratulations, Mary Lou!

Ann Lage
Regional Oral History Office

Staff changes at Public Health Library

Regretfully, Nicole Reich, our Reference/Outreach Librarian will be leaving PUBL as of March 1 to move to Minneapolis where her husband has taken a new job. Nicole came to PUBL in July 2001 from Austin, Texas.

At Public Health Library Nicole was instrumental in developing and implementing an outreach program and materials, served on the reference desk, did literature searching, worked on our web pages and coordinated the electronic journal licensing and accessing for our contract clientele. She took the lead in transitioning to PubMed from Medline in Melvyl and in doing online instruction. We have depended on her to take care of innumerable pc related technical mprovements and glitches.

Her leaving will have ramifications outside the Public Health Library as well, for she played important roles on the Science Council's Sciences Ejournals Team and two general library groups: the Training Working Group and the Digital Reference Working Group. While we wish her well in her return to the Midwest (she hails originally from South Dakota), we cannot help but be sad. Some of us deal with our sadness by devising new ways to tease her, making unfavorable comparisons between our wonderful Bay Area and the Midwest, to which she responds with customary diplomacy, graciousness, and glee.

In the midst of the unwelcome news of Nicole's imminent departure, we are grateful for the continuity and temporary sense of security afforded by the knowledge that Debbie Jan, who has been the Acting Head of Public Health Library since March 2001, will be continuing as Acting Head until the end of this fiscal year.

Stepping in to partly fill the vacant librarian position temporarily left by Debbie's move to Acting Head and Nicole's soon-to-be-vacated position is Michael Sholinbeck, our new temporary Assistant Librarian, whose appointment continues through June 30, 2002. Michael is not, however, exactly a newcomer to Public Health Library. From June - August 2000 he was with us as a student Intern while working towards a MLIS at the School of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University. When Debbie took Acting Head responsibilities, we were pleased to be able to hire Michael as a temporary part-time Library Assistant. Now that he has his MLIS, we are equally pleased to have him on board as our temporary Assistant Librarian. During his student internship Michael worked on several special projects and while a Library Assistant he served on the reference desk. He will help out in providing reference services, online searching, web page maintenance, and more. Previous jobs he has held include 2 years as a Library Assistant at the Oakland Public Library and 14 years at a San Francisco Hospital in financial advisory services. Michael has a BS and an MS in Geography. Welcome, Michael!

Juta Savage
Acting Assistant Head, Public Health Library

Note: CU News was not published on January 31, 2002 due to illness.