Peter McCracken receives Ulrich’s Serials Librarianship Award
From: Maria Michelle Sitko <sitko_at_maryu.marywood.edu>
Peter McCracken receives Ulrich’s Serials Librarianship Award
CHICAGO-The Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) has named
Peter McCracken, the 2011 recipient of the Ulrich’s Serials Librarianship Award. This
award for distinguished contributions, presented by the Continuing Resources Section of
ALCTS, consists of a citation and $1,500 donated by ProQuest through its Serials Solutions
business unit.
Peter McCracken, Creator/Publisher, Shipindex.org has made extraordinarily distinguished
contributions to the field of serials librarianship, the serials information chain and
serials standards through his expertise in serials content management and the creation of
a variety of library community transforming services. His innumerable presentations at
meetings and conferences, exceptional levels of participation in the setting of industry
standards, his published works in the serials literature, work on conference planning
committees, and his consistent support and active involvement in professional
organizations world-wide sets him apart as a leader and critical thinker in our discipline.
Peter’s impact on reshaping the library industry has been both transformative and
visionary. His past work as Director, Electronic Content Management, and Co-Founder,
Serials Solutions, Inc., Seattle, Washington led to the successful development of a
knowledge base platform that enabled libraries to effectively manage their ever growing
electronic journal collections. Peter (and his brothers) quickly understood the need for
improving collection management in all content formats and that it was often more cost
effective to outsource the management of titles within ejournal packages; and that “cloud”
software and data is almost always a better platform for library services than installing
and maintaining software locally. Peter’s original A-Z list proved to be so useful that it
would serve as the “engine” for a range of other products (link resolvers, ERAMS
–Electronic Resource Access & Management Systems -including valuable title overlap
analysis reports , MARC record services), and even the most recently developed single
unified index web scale discovery service, Summon, is premised on the same knowledgebase.
Peter’s work as a former reference librarian at the University of Washington assisted in
his understanding that the success of the deceptively simple production of an A-Z list
hinged primarily on consistently ensuring the integrity of data and its related links. The
result was revolutionary. Peter’s “hands on” involvement in developing tools made him a
valuable advocate and contributor to SUSHI (Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting
Initiative), the Open URL standard which enables linking between tools and resources on
the Web, and the NISO/ ALPSP Journal Article Versions working group which examined
problems associated with the proliferation of different versions of journal articles,
resulting in the development of a recommendations document that can be found at
http://www.niso.org/publications/rp/RP-8-2008.pdf.
In 2006, under Peter’s leadership, Serials Solutions became an active affiliate member of
CONSER’s international activities, including his active participation in the Access Level
working group that was formed to develop a single CONSER standard record that would apply
to all formats of serials and reduce cataloging costs. Their document may be found at
http://www.loc.gov/acq/conser/alrFinalReport.html .
Peter’s passion for OpenURL and accurate knowledge bases led him to collaborate with the
United Kingdom Serials Group as co-chair of the joint NISO/UKSG KBART (Knowledge Bases and
Related Tools) working group that developed recommended practices for standardizing the
transfer of data within and among information supply chain participants. Their document
may be found at http://www.niso.org/publications/rp/PR-2010-09.pdf.
All of Peter’s letters of recommendation referred to him personally, to his work and
contributions in superlatives that underscored his vision, ideas, cooperative nature and
exceptional work ethic as well as his extraordinary skill at problem solving. Each noted
his passion for excellence and how serial librarians, libraries in general, and their
users have benefited from the creation of his sorely needed services. Evidence and
testimony to Peter’s commitment to the serials profession has been profound. He is looked
upon as a true pioneer who gave birth to an industry that was truly needed. His
contributions to the development of tools and methods, demonstrated leadership,
scholarship, development and implementation of standards, including current endeavors has
greatly enriched the intellectual life of the profession and immeasurably improved access
and understanding of the digital serials environment for librarians and end users.
Ulrich’s Award Jury
Maria Michelle Sitko, Chair (Marywood University)
Wen-ying Lu (University of Colorado at Boulder)
Tina Shrader (National Agricultural Library)
Narda Tafuri (University of Scranton)
Christopher H. Walker (Pennsylvania State University)
The Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) is the national
association for information providers who work in collection and technical services, such
as acquisitions, cataloging, collection development, preservation, and continuing
resources in digital and print formats.
ALCTS is a division of the American Library Association.
Received on Tue Jan 25 2011 - 09:06:44 EST