Steven Arakawa
Steven demonstrates total dedication and highly professional service at the Yale University Library. He exemplifies principles of service dedication through his attention to detail and his collaborative working manner in interacting with colleagues on various committees. Steve has worked on several projects; he served as Head of the Arts Team, the Catalog Management Team, and also served as a member of the LSF Processing and Software Selection Groups. Steve consistently excels at all tasks given. Steve’s dedication, conscientiousness, and applied skills are just a few of his many talents that affect all facets of the Library system. He is an excellent choice for this year’s Service Quality Award.

Arthur Bromell
As a member of the Service and Maintenance staff assigned to the Sterling Memorial Library, Arthur consistently demonstrates a high level of service, dedication and applied skills. He takes the initiative to suggest improvements in his workflow as exemplified in his design of a vacuum cleaner attachment from a PVC pipe that more easily and efficiently cleans the nave in the Sterling Memorial Library. He also offers his services beyond the requirements of his job, as exemplified in his volunteering to guard the Library’s main entrance on Parents Weekend. Art takes responsibility for emergency cleanups, which have resulted in reducing flood damage to the Library and its collections. The Library is truly fortunate to have the high service quality skills of an individual like Art.

Claire Halloran
Claire Halloran handles in an exceptional manner one of the Library’s high-impact and critical services in support of teaching. She has been a stalwart provider of reserve services to faculty and students for many years. Claire oversees the CCL office staff and students who enter course reserve material information and orders the books needed for reserve. Claire maybe soft spoken, and small in size, but she is a wealth of knowledge, has a wonderful sense of humor, has a generous heart and patience beyond measure. She often extends herself to resolve problems, find compromises, and follows up on details as needed. The Yale University Library is fortunate to have an employee with the skills, knowledge, and commitment of Claire. She is an excellent choice for the Service Quality Award.

Mary Holder
Mary is the evening lead person at Kline Science Library. She is responsible for providing front line coverage at the circulation desk. She directs student assistants in circulation, processes Inter-Library Loan lending, prepares reserve materials, reports facilities problems and secures the library at closing. Mary Holder personifies the qualities and characteristics of staff who provide excellent customer service.

Suzanne Lorimer
For over a year, Suzanne Lorimer provided leadership and inspiration as Chair of the Document Delivery Improvement Group. Sue structured a new approach to deliver and manage service improvement by designing tools and methodology for evaluating Inter-Library Loan management systems, directed the team efforts to gather information, communicated with potential vendors and prepared reports that were instrumental to the success of the process improvement effort. Sue’s diligent leadership and drive as well as her fresh approach are an inspiration to her colleagues, and an excellent example of a Service Quality Award winner.

William Massa
William Massa has consistently demonstrated high levels of public service to the patrons of the Manuscripts and Archives Department. An excellent archivist, Bill is very familiar with the resources of the department, and has great knowledge of how to locate and access the collections. Bill has provided invaluable assistance to several Yale offices, working for example with the staffs of the Office of Public Affairs and the Yale Alumni Magazine to find and reproduce needed items for publication and publicity. Bill also represents the library well beyond his work assignments. In his role as a fellow of Trumbull College, he consistently shows his dedication to contribute to Yale’s teaching environment through his work as a freshman advisor to some ten or more students each year, working closely with them throughout the course of their undergraduate years. Today we recognize Bill for his outstanding service and commitment to the Library and the University.

Vermetha Polite
Vermetha is a library services assistant for all three of the Medical Library’s Document Delivery services. Vermetha has distinguished herself in this high volume environment by training staff, assisting with workflow issues and promoting improvements for DOCLINE. She gives priority to tasks most relevant to delivery service, but also maintains crucial administrative tasks on a daily basis. She fosters harmony wherever she works by providing advice and training to her co-workers in the same pleasant manner as she handles the occasional demanding patron. Vermetha excellently represents quality service to the Yale-New Haven Medical Center community.

Lynette Robinson
"Ask Lynette" is the advice given to address acquisition problems. She deals with complicated questions or situations with a sure touch, and very gracefully. Lynette has been responsible for locating requested items on the review shelves. She is also responsible for training and coordinating students in the Monograph Support Team that receive books for approval into Orbis, distributes books to selectors, and then sends them for cataloging. Among these accomplishments, her greatest achievement is assuring the successful continuous operation of these important stages in processing new material. The Service Quality Award is a fitting credit for Lynette’s valuable contributions to the Yale Library.

Alfred May
Alfred worked this past year as a student assistant in the Reference Department at the Medical Library. In addition to performing his core task of shelving both recent and rare books, Mr. May scanned materials for the Tercentennial exhibits in the rotunda of the Library so they could be put online. He also created CD-ROMs, labeling the images according to our recent published catalog. This now allows patrons to see color images of the prints on the screen without having to handle the prints themselves. He also assisted with calculating library statistics each sampling day throughout the year. Alfred May was a friendly, intelligent worker, and was a great addition to the Reference Department and a worthy recipient of the Service Quality Award. The student award is a gift certificate to Barnes and Nobles Bookstore.

Front Door Redesign Team
This Task Force is an excellent example of a working team. Its redesign of the Library’s front door suite of web pages was a study in democratic exercise – equal contribution in decision-making and workload. Their efforts have resulted in a web design that highlights the Library’s valuable offerings. Their work to understand customer expectations and ability to merge old systems with new have resulted in a high impact and critical service tool for faculty, students, and all other visitors to the Library’s presence on the web. Members of the team were:

Carolyn Claflin
Holly Grossetta Nardini
Jennifer Kostelnik
Julie Linden
Gillian Mayman
Marianna McKim
Karen Reardon
Andrew Shimp

Workstation Support Group
This is a remarkable responsive and efficient team. They manage 900 staff and public workstations, and have full responsibility for six servers and shared responsibility for two others. They are all consistently patient, persistent, and swift to resolve problems that affect readers access to our resources. The Workstation Support Group also has responsibility for supporting Web development in the Library. Keeping the computers running smoothly, responding swiftly to solve crises, and maintaining good humor under pressure, illustrate how the Workstation Support Group handles challenging situations of high-impact to the wellness of the library workplace. They most certainly demonstrate the principles of service quality. The team recognized this year includes the following:

Ernest Marinko
George Ouellette
Karen Reardon
Meng-Ghon Tang