UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State University Libraries recognized 13 outstanding faculty and staff on April 10, from among its more than 500 employees University-wide. Faculty and staff based at the Berks, Harrisburg, Hershey and University Park campuses were recognized. Faye Chadwell, dean of University Libraries and Scholarly Communications, presided over an awards ceremony to continue a tradition of recognizing employees that spans more than 50 years.
Jonathan Duffy, acquisitions and interlibrary loan specialist, and Corey Wetherington, open education infrastructure specialist, both at Berks Thun Library, Penn State Berks, received the Margaret Knoll Spangler Oliver Award. This award, named for a 20-year University Libraries employee, is presented for outstanding service and successful performance of an employee of the University Libraries.
Duffy consistently demonstrates a high level of efficiency in maintaining and updating the library’s special collections and has introduced new enhancements to streamline the workflow. He has implemented solutions to some service challenges. When he identified an increasing demand for leisure reading materials, he secured funding to establish a manga and leisure reading area for students. Through strategic planning and resourcefulness, Duffy relocated the collection and repurposed existing furniture to create a comfortable reading space for students to explore leisure reading titles.
Wetherington has identified process improvements and suggested innovations in many projects, such as the Drupal 10 migration, that led co-workers to think about things in a different way and helped to provide improvements. His innovative spirit is evident when he dedicates time to learning a new platform or making improvements to anything that does not work as expected. Wetherington is passionate about ensuring access to educational and scholarly materials and cares deeply about the work of creating and disseminating materials that are freely and openly available to all.
Angel Peterson, production specialist and accessibility coordinator, Libraries Open Publishing, received the Shirley J. Davis Staff Excellence Award. Named for a former employee who assisted the Libraries’ directors and deans for more than four decades, the award honors outstanding service of employees who create a nurturing, encouraging and inspiring workplace and demonstrate excellence and professionalism in their field.
Peterson reviewed and improved the publishing processes for bibliographies and monographs, creating and maintaining detailed documentation and providing a wealth of knowledge related to using the Drupal content management system for bibliography publications. She has also taken on a leadership role in the area of accessibility by drafting documentation and guides for both internal use and external training purposes and collaborating with the Penn State Accessibility Office to create training courses for use University-wide.
Emily Mross, business librarian, Madlyn L. Hanes Library, Penn State Harrisburg, received the University Libraries Award, given to a member of the University Libraries holding an academic or staff appointment who has contributed significantly by his or her performance to the operations of the University Libraries.
Mross contributes her professional expertise to the operations of the Libraries through her unwavering commitment to mentorship and her understanding of the workings and relationships among University Libraries, Penn State, the Harrisburg campus and Hanes Library. In addition, she is dedicated to providing financial literacy education to the Penn State community and others through the PA Forward program of the Pennsylvania Library Association (PaLA), a framework that helps libraries communicate the impact of their programs in five literacy areas: Basic, Information, Civic and Social, Financial, and Health.
Binky Lush, IT manager for strategic technologies, received the Diversity Award, which recognizes extraordinary commitment and/or contributions to enhancing the Libraries’ environment of mutual respect for differing backgrounds and points of view as well as those who have championed the causes of diversity and climate.
Lush has been instrumental with initiatives related to DEI, with a focus on accessibility, for more than 15 years. As the owner of many online systems such as the University Libraries website, Penn State’s Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive, Libraries Digital Signage and more, she has a large portfolio of high-profile web-based tools accessed by millions of users every year. Lush provides strong, forward-thinking leadership around making these tools not only functional, but accessible and inclusive for all users.
The members of the 2024 Drupal Migration Team received the Collaboration/Teamwork Award, given in recognition of a collaboration or team within the University Libraries that substantially benefited the Libraries or Penn State community.
The 2024 Drupal Migration Team was formed to migrate 29 Drupal 7 websites to Drupal 10. This migration was critical to ensuring the long-term stability and security of the Libraries’ web infrastructure and provided an additional opportunity to modernize the sites with improved accessibility and performance and a streamlined content management experience. The team was managed by Binky Lush, with project coordination assistance from Michael Henninger, lead Drupal developer, and Andrew Gearhart, DevOps engineer. Other team members were James Campbell, DevOps engineer; Karen Hackett, web designer; Ryan Johnson, IT trainer; Karen Schwentner, front end developer; Xiaoyu Sun, IT generalist, Harrell Health Sciences Library Research and Learning Commons, Penn State College of Medicine; and Corey Wetherington, open education infrastructure specialist, research informatics and publishing.
Erica King, part-time instructional designer at the Pennsylvania Center for the Book (PACFTB), received the Part-Time Employee Excellence Award honoring a colleague who typically works 24 hours or less each week but whose initiative, peer support and outstanding performance have contributed to a positive working environment that has made an impact on the Libraries, colleagues or Penn State community.
King has made a significant impact by developing educational web-based instructional content, mentoring undergraduate student interns, and collaborating with Penn State academic units. Her work on initiatives such as the Literary and Cultural Heritage Maps of Pennsylvania, the PACFTB’s Family Literacy curriculum, and the forthcoming online Pittsburgh African American Cultural History Project has expanded access to engaging electronic educational resources for students, educators and library users throughout Pennsylvania.
Selecting recipients of the 2025 Libraries awards from among nominees were members of the University Libraries Awards Committee: Andrew Dudash, librarian for political science, Social Sciences Library, chair; Jackie Dillon-Fast, library operations supervisor, William and Joan Schreyer Business Library, Dr. Keiko Miwa Ross Global News Center, past chair; Rebekah Hill, music and performing arts librarian, Walter and Doris Goldstein Music and Media Center, George and Sherry Middlemas Arts and Humanities Library, chair-elect; Lori Lysiak, reference and instruction librarian, Robert E. Eiche Library, Penn State Altoona; Dawn Amsberry, reference and instruction librarian, Library Learning Services; David Brett Spencer, reference and instruction librarian, Thun Library, Penn State Berks; Andrew Marshall, head librarian, J. Clarence Kelly Library, Penn State Greater Allegheny; Ruth Tillman, cataloging systems and linked data strategist, Cataloging and Metadata Services; Deb Martin, library services associate, Lee R. Glatfelter Library, Penn State York; Mikala Andino-Dockter, Makenna Owen and Audrey McGovern, Libraries administration, dean’s office, staff liaisons.
For more information about the University Libraries Awards, contact Mikala Andino-Dockter at mikala@psu.edu.