IACRL names NIU's Munroe
academic librarian of the year

Mary Munroe, associate dean of collections and technical services in the NIU Libraries, has been selected to receive the Illinois Academic Librarian of the Year Award for 2003.

Murnoe is the third NIU librarian in 10 years to win this award, given by the Illinois Association of College and Research Libraries. The others, respectively, were Elaine Rast and Arthur P. Young, dean of libraries.

She received her award Sept. 31 during a formal presentation during the IACRL Annual Meeting at the Illinois Library Association Conference. This award has been given annually since 1985 to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to academic or research librarianship at the statewide level.

Munroe has demonstrated achievement through her research, service and leadership, IACRL awards committee members said. Munroe has served as chair for both the ICCMP Coordinating Committee and the Task Force on Statewide Assessment. In addition, she chaired the IDAL Steering Committee from 2000-2001 and served on many IACRL and ACRL committees.

A supporting letter written by one of Munroe’s colleagues notes, she “has an enviably balanced record of state service, outstanding librarianship, significant scholarship, and excellent leadership.” Another wrote, “Her collegiality sparkles, her sharp wit entertains, and her keen insight inspires.” Another praised her work on the Task Force on Statewide Assessment for producing “a wonderful tool for individual library and statewide collection analysis.”

Munroe began developing a statewide assessment collection project in 1999. The project worked to expand the usefulness of a library catalog from a finding aid to an assessment tool.

Over the next four years she wrote four successful ICCMP grants to expand the project using the OCLC Conspectus to compare the collections of some 86 Illinois libraries. She also was successful in her attempt to seek supplementary funding from the participating libraries. Throughout the course of this project, Munroe presented a variety of talks and training sessions on making effective use of this valuable data.

Her work on collection development and assessment has produced a body of nationally recognized knowledge and research. She has spoken on the subject at national conferences in Toronto, Charleston and Seattle. Munroe’s work in this field is reflected in book chapters, conference presentations and articles. Her most recent article, with Jennie E.Ver Steeg, appeared in the 2004 Library Quarterly.

Mary’s interest in publishing began as the Publications Editor at Emory University.

In recent years, her work has focused on the negative consequences of mergers and acquisitions within the publishing industry. She has made significant contributions to the study of commercial pressures on academic publishing. She is a consultant with the ARL Scholarly Communications Division on mergers and acquisitions in science, technical, and medical publishing. In 2004, she created a Web site commissioned by the ARL documenting mergers and acquisitions in academic publishing. This site can be found at http://www.niulib.niu.edu/publishers/.

Munroe received her bachelor’s degree from Furman University. She earned a master’s degree in English literature with a specialty in medieval drama from the University of South Carolina and an M.L.S. from Emory University.

She was head of collection development of Georgian State University from 1993 to 1998. She also worked as a business and public and urban affairs bibliographer, reference librarian and as director of research at an advertising agency. Munroe teaches collection development at the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science’s LEEP Program.

— Story courtesy IACRL Newsletter, Fall 2004

10-18-04