2005 Service Quality Improvement Awards Ceremony
Monday, February 23, 2005

Service Quality Improvement Award Committee for 2004

Left to right: Danuta Nitecki (Sponsor), Brian Kupiec, Carol Jones,
Janusz Kulakowski, Sharon Forbes, Diane Kaplan, Bernadette Cioffi (ex-officio)

Congratulations to the recipients!

Jared Schwede,
Student Assistant in the Acquisitions Department

Jared Schwede performs his assigned tasks with a speed and accuracy that make it possible for the acquisitions team to process materials in an extremely timely manner. However, beyond that, Jared made an exceptional contribution this past year when he developed a macro to be used in the Frontlog effort. He began processing books for the Frontlog last summer and it was then that he decided to rewrite the existing Frontlog macro. The resulting macro has revolutionized the way books are processed for shelving in the Frontlog. This macro has been adapted by staff for processing books in other workflows, as well.We honor Jared's efforts that will continue to contribute to increases in productivity and will ultimately have positive outcomes for library readers, as well as research and services at Yale.

Tim Smith,
Student Assistant in Web, Workstation and Digital Consulting Services
congratulated by Associate University Librarian, Danuta Nitecki (left)
and University Librarian, Alice Prochaska

For the past two and one-half years, Tim Smith has worked in Web, Workstation & Digital Consulting Services. His enthusiasm and organizational skills have been directly responsible for changing the unit's methods for storage of equipment, for streamlining the recycling of hundreds of pounds of computer equipment, and for reducing the turnaround time in the deployment of new equipment. Facing his own departure coming this May, Tim anticipated the need for a well-trained replacement and set about finding a willing apprentice. He organized a training routine for the new student employee and remains determined that the improvements he has made will continue beyond his watch.
Tim willingly accepts any task and personifies the reasons that many of us choose to work at Yale. It is a pleasure to honor Tim for his overall accomplishments and consistent demonstration of high level of service and dedication, as well as the valued development of new procedures that have resulted in significant improvement in productivity that have positive outcomes for those his unit serves.

Our team awards:

Law Library Acquisitions/Fastcat Team

Taking a moment to pose for the photographer, from left to right:
Pam Clifford, Louisa DeGaetano, Judy Malamut,
Jo-Anne Giammattei, Maria Puzzo

The Acquisitions/Fastcat Team of the Law Library is a first rate partner in the Law School's commitment to global legal scholarship. This commitment manifests in the Law Library's concerted efforts to fill collection gaps, establish new orders and make excellent use of a budget that is commensurate with Yale Law School's premier status.
In FY04 the team received and processed 33% more titles annually, and in FY05 to date shows a 19% increase over that and a 28% increase in volumes processed. The team's flexibility made it possible to adjust workflows to take advantage of new software features, resulting is savings in catalog time and its collaboration with Administrative Systems ITS in the design of a MORRIS/Accounts Payable interface resulted in decreased invoice processing time and rapid and accurate vendor payments. A separate initiative to import electronic records from EBSCO has resulted in huge timesavings at subscription renewal time, when thousands of line items can be processed now in a matter of hours versus a matter of days. We honor this team for developing new procedures that resulted in significant improvements in productivity that have had a positive outcome for library readers.

Library Business Office Team

Left to right: Vinnie DeFeo, Roy Bohlander, Debbie McGraw, are
congratulated by Alice Prochaska. Missing from photo:
Robin Gordon and Sue Jaffee.

The Library Business Office is being recognized for consistent and unfailing delivery of exceptional services. Their support activities, across a broad spectrum of Library constituents, contribute to staff morale and productivity, promote excellent relationships with suppliers, and assure the Library's fiscal soundness and integrity. Their development of easy-to-use guides and spreadsheets has simplified budgeting. Their development and timeliness of reports help insure that budgets are properly committed and expended. Their dedication to excellence has resulted in an extraordinarily high standard of accuracy and timeliness for business transactions. Their automation of the M&P timesheets and close scrutiny of C&T and student timesheets has made time accounting an art.Their guidance, savvy and support have been essential in managing Library resources and assets during difficult times. Indeed, the entire LBO staff is always keenly interested in empowering and enabling Library departments to move their strategic goals forward, and they do so with professionalism, candor and good humor. Their endeavor can be characterized as follows:Huge amounts of work, relentless deadlines, requiring extraordinary accuracy and good cheer. This team is honored for its consistent demonstration of meeting these demands with high levels of service, dedication, conscientiousness and applied skills.

Our individual honorees

John Morgan
Library Assistat, Geology Library

For his work spanning a range of activities, including continually expanding his role and noteworthy and impressive effort on essential one-time support tasks, John Morgan is recognized as an individual who demonstrated excellent service quality improvement. As a team player John assumed ever-increasing responsibilities for the primary training of new staff in basic circulation, acquisitions and binding operations. Over time he has developed an extraordinary knowledge of the entire circulation, acquisitions and binding processes and he serves as a resource for not only the science libraries but on a Library-wide level as well. John set an example of commitment and effort when he absorbed the additional duty of paying all science library invoices for an entire year. This was accomplished without realizing any more than a minimal backlog with the Geology Library.John maintains a consistent high level of service and dedication and his efforts and suggestions have resulted in modifications which provide for greater productivity in acquisitions and invoicing operations.

Dawn Mankowski
Conservation Assistant, Collections Care Program/Preservation

High energy, maximum efficiency and stellar organizational skills characterize the successful execution of the many responsibilities that Dawn Mankowski handles in the Collections Care Program. This past year she assumed a new level of leadership in reorganizing both the physical as well as the workflow aspects of the unit, and has been instrumental in improving the efficiency and turnaround of the book repair unit.
Dawn's overall positive effect on her department stems from the many ways in which she encourages her co-workers to always keep learning and to see and understand how their work adds to the quality of the Library. Her cooperative spirit and keen organizational skill was evident and at the basis of a successful effort to remove a large number of books from the CCL closed reserve area. She managed to conclude the project with minimal disruption to CCL staff and effective communication of CCP progress to all impacted areas. We recognize Dawn for her improvement to existing procedures that have resulted in significant improvement in productivity that have positive impact for library readers.

Lilliane McClenning
Administrative Assistant, Law Library

Through an unfailingly positive attitude coupled with a warm and easy personality, Liliane helps make the Library a more humane and enjoyable place to work. Her efficiency, good will, patience, flexibility and professional manner welcome you to her office. She manages to blend outstanding performance with a genuine concern for others. Always ready to help, Liliane is creative and solution-oriented. She has proven herself equally comfortable as a team leader as well as a team member. And, she always seems to make the time and have the desire to meet everyone's expectations. Highly respected by her peers and supervisors, Lilian maintains high levels of initiative and attention to customer satisfaction. Liliane is honored today for her outstanding concern for the welfare of others which has led to an improvement in staff morale with a consequent improvement in quality of service to readers.

Ana Amelia Contrastano
Acquisitions Assistant, Latin American Collection

Amelia has developed into one of the Library's best experts in the area of claiming, serials processing and predictive patterns, and numerous of her colleagues turn to her for information and advice. She is generous in sharing her expertise with others.
Amelia's local expertise is rare in an environment where it is more common to find compartmentalization of skills. It is a significant achievement that rests on knowing both the work that is being done and understanding local workflows and preferences and demonstrates her commitment to excellence. Above this, it is Amelia's exceptional personal qualities that make her an exemplar of quality service. Invariably even-tempered and good-natured, she exerts a calming influence and greatly improves the dynamic of any group she joins. We honor her today for her outstanding concern for others which has repeatedly led to improvement in staff morale which in turn have a consequent improvement in quality of service to readers.

Other photos from the ceremony:

Admiring the cake, left to right: Rebecca Hamilton, Deborah McArthur,
Tom Saul and Olga Karnauchov

Enjoying the refreshments are left to right Ana Amelia
Contrastano, Elisa Nascimento, Elaine Pacelli, Dawn Ferguson

Basia Olszowa and Theresa Cullen

Over 50 staff people attended the ceremony

Antonia Caserta (left) and Diane Kaplan (right) and other Library staff employees
sharing in the festivities

Photographs taken by:
Bernie Staggers, Media Services
Maryetta Russell, Library Administrative Services