Susan Gibbons, assistant dean for public services and collection development at River Campus Libraries, has been chosen for a "Mover & Shaker" award by Library Journal, the oldest and best-known national library publication.
Described by the magazine this week as a bridge builder, Gibbons was credited for her work developing the University of Rochester's institutional repository and for contributing to the University's early involvement as a leader in using DSpace technology to capture, store, index, and distribute finished scholarly work.
The continuation of that effort produced UR Research, a new repository developed for faculty members, researchers, and graduate student users. With an Institute of Museum and Library Services National Leadership Grant, she worked with a team that studied faculty research practices and came up with solutions to get their scholarly work better known and cited worldwide.
Gibbons told the magazine that one of her "proudest achievements is the development of CoURse Resources, a relational database of major library resources and course offerings that allows librarians to generate a page of links quickly to the best print and electronic (and human) library resources for any course." She also said she "enjoyed the challenge of reengineering librarianship in a Google world."
She holds a master's degree in history and in library science from Indiana University, and a professional MBA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She is co-author of E-Book Functionality: What Libraries and Their Patrons Want and Expect from Electronic Books (ALA, 2003).
Library Journal chose 51 individuals for the 2005 award. They will be honored at a luncheon at the American Library Association annual conference in June.