OCULA Award for Special Achievement
Description
The OCULA Award for Special Achievement honours exceptional achievement(s) in at least one of the following areas:
- Service to library committees, associations or organizations that demonstrates great impact, collaboration, and mentorship.
- Research and publication in areas of academic librarianship, especially research projects that show innovation, impact, and have been disseminated widely
- Planning and implementing a library program (e.g. innovative approaches to teaching, reference services, or community engagement) which demonstrates impact, collaboration, and longevity
Nominees for this award may be an individual person or a group. When nominating a group, please select 1-2 individuals to receive the award on behalf of the group.
Criteria/Eligibility
Nominees do not have to be members of OLA/OCULA to be eligible for this award.
Nomination Procedure
- Nominations will be accepted between: September – November.
- Nominator must be a member in good standing of OLA. We welcome self-nominations.
- Nominator should specify which area of Service, Research or Planning the person or group has contributed to in the application.
- The nominator must provide sufficient documented evidence of the nominee’s contribution, including:
- One letter of support from the nominator
- Up to two (2) letters from the nominee’s colleagues supporting the nomination that provide specific examples of the nominee’s achievement(s).
- Colleagues knowledgeable about the nominee’s work should be chosen to write the letters of support.
- The selection committee will evaluate the nomination using this Rubric
Selection Process
- The selection committee consists of the OCULA awards committee who are members of OCULA council
- Eligible applications will be assessed according to the criteria above and any supporting documentation.
- The OCULA Awards Committee may request additional information from the nominee before finalizing its decision.
- The OCULA Awards Committee will present all qualified candidates to the OCULA Council and their recommendation for the award winner. The Council will consider all potential candidates, including those nominated from the membership. Council will vote to approve or reject the Awards Committee recommendation.
- Once the winner(s) have been chosen, the OLA Office and OCULA Past President will contact the successful nominator. The OLA office will contact all unsuccessful nominators.
- The OLA office will connect with the recipient(s) for award presentation logistics.
- The presentation of the award is at the discretion of OCULA Council and is not necessarily presented on an annual basis.
Award Presentation Information
- This award is presented at the OLA annual Super Conference
- The winner will be notified in advance of the award presentation.
- The recipient will prepare a short acceptance speech.
2023 Mark Swartz, Queens University
2022 Not awarded
2021 Not awarded
2020 Not awarded
2019 Not awarded
2018 The Learning Portal, College Libraries Ontario with the support of Ontario Colleges Library Service
2017 La Casita Azul, York University Libraries Student2Scholar, Western University, Queen’s University, University of Toronto
2016 Colin S. Clarke MISt, Director, Canadian Centre for Epigraphic Documents, Le centre canadien des document épigraphiques
2015 Not awarded
2014 HLLR (Head Libraries & Learning Resources) Copyright Literacy in Ontario Colleges SPARK – Student Papers and Academic Research Kit
2013 Not awarded
2012 Robin Bergart & M.J. D’Elia University of Guelph for Innovation Boot Camp
2011 Not awarded
2010 Project Conifer (represented by Dan Scott, Project Manager), Ontario consortium of libraries using Evergreen open source software
