UWs Hanscom Receives WLA Distinguished Service Award

September 23, 2013
Woman
Martha Hanscom

Martha Hanscom, University of Wyoming Libraries associate librarian, is the recipient of the Wyoming Library Association’s (WLA) 2013 Distinguished Service Award. She will be honored Thursday, Oct. 3, at the annual WLA’s Conference awards banquet.

The award recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to improve library service to customers; contributions to WLA and the profession; contributions to the library’s community; and contributions to the profession in their career.

“Martha is the consummate professional, and she well represents the best of the Wyoming Library Association members and is well deserving of this award,” says Maggie Farrell, UW Libraries dean.

Hanscom serves as senior cataloger at UW. Her expertise on cataloging and name authority is recognized nationally and internationally. As the liaison to the Name Authority Cooperative Project (NACO) and an NACO regional trainer, Hanscom has raised the level of UW Library’s cataloging proficiency to an international set of common standards and guidelines that maximize communal international resources.

She has served UW and the state as a cataloging resource person for the past 35 years. As a Library of Congress certified NACO trainer, Hanscom has trained people at many libraries in the region on how to create name authority records and has led UW’s efforts to create authorized forms of Wyoming names. She has trained numerous catalogers through the years and also has introduced many public services people to the intricacies of what happens in technical services.

“Martha is an exceptional cataloger. She has shared her knowledge with many people through the years and has always been willing to answer cataloging question from around the state,” notes Debbie McCarthy, Technical Services department head.

A subject bibliographer for classics, German and religious studies, Hanscom also works closely with UW faculty members on their collection and research needs, ensuring that library collections meet the variety of teaching needs in those departments.

In recent years, Hanscom worked closely with the UW Department of Religious Studies to coordinate the exhibition of the traveling exhibit, “Manifold Greatness: The Creation and Afterlife of the King James Bible,” from the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., that commemorated the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible. The public event featured a monthlong series of lectures by local and visiting faculty.

A cataloger at UW Libraries since 1978, Hanscom earned her M.S. in librarianship (1972) at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Mich. Before joining UW, she was head of Technical Services at Hills Library at the Andover Newton Theological School in Newton Centre, Mass.

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