Congratulations to our very own Sandy Nyberg, LYRASIS Grants Officer, for this well-deserved award.

Article originally posted at www.ala.org

CHICAGO—The Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) Preservation and Reformatting Section (PARS) Jury for the George Cunha and Susan Swartzburg Preservation Award has selected Sandra “Sandy” Nyberg as the 2018 recipient. The award, sponsored by Hollinger Metal Edge, will be presented during a ceremony at the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference and Exhibition in New Orleans, La. The award includes a citation and a $1,250 monetary award.

Sandy’s career with SOLINET, which later became LYRASIS, has been characterized by her efforts to extend preservation beyond larger academic libraries. First as a field officer, then later as manager of its microfilming and preservation services, Sandy and her staff crafted programs that enabled all libraries to participate. In the process, even small libraries found uniqueness in their collections. Her outreach spread preservation initiatives to libraries from across the spectrum. Many librarians relied on “Invasion of the Giant Mold Spore,” an accessible, low-overhead guide she wrote on preventing or controlling mold in libraries. In subsequent years, the scope of her work has included historically Black colleges and universities, performing arts organizations and public and academic libraries damaged by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and (more recently) Maria.

To fund these wide-ranging initiatives, Sandy’s scope was equally wide-ranging: in a list of foundations and federal funders supporting the efforts she has shepherded, we find the NEH, but also the Departments of Education and Commerce. We find the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, but also the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation. The Council on Library and Information Resources and the National Commission on Libraries and Information Services supported her work with historically Black colleges and universities, as did the Mellon Foundation. In all, Sandy’s vision for these services engaged twelve different sponsors who awarded more than $55 million to SOLINET and LYRASIS.

Sandy’s creative approach has pulled in libraries and funders from beyond our usual orbits and given us a sense of how far into library operations preservation can reach. As one of her colleagues noted, “Without Sandy many brilliant ideas would have languished on the drafting table.”

Established in 2007, the award honors the memory of George Cunha and Susan Swartzburg, early leaders in cooperative preservation programming and strong advocates for collaboration in the field of preservation. The award acknowledges and supports cooperative preservation projects and rewards individuals or groups that foster collaboration for preservation goals.

The Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) is the national association for information providers who work in collections and technical services, such as acquisitions, cataloging, collection development, preservation and continuing resources in digital and print formats. ALCTS is a division of the American Library Association.