You could have knocked me over with a feather on Friday when I read the e-mail notifying me that I will be receiving the 2013 AASL Distinguished Service Award.  The award will be presented during the AASL Awards Luncheon at the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago on July 1.  This award is both flattering and humbling, having been won previously by many “giants” in the field whose work I admire, whose collegiality with peers and mentoring of students I strive to emulate, and whose last names suffice:  Haycock, Woolls, Kuhlthau, Loertscher, and Eisenberg—just to name a few.

I am also grateful to:

·     early winner, Mary Gaver of Rutgers University, whose research decades ago inspired the first “Colorado study”,

·     former Colorado State Librarian Nancy Bolt, for her supportive and empowering leadership,

·     my RSL Research Group and Library Research Service collaborators–Marcia Rodney, Bill Schwarz, Nicolle Steffen, Briana Hovendick Francis, and Linda Hofschire–with whom I share this award, and finally,

·     my friend, colleague, and nominator, Christie M. Koontz of Florida State University, and her “collaborators” (Kit Keller–a longtime colleague when she was at the NE Library Commission as well as a sometime RSL colleague–and Rochelle Logan of Douglas County (CO) Libraries, among others, I’m told).

Now I ask you:  how many people do you know who would join an ALA division just to nominate you for an award?

Thanks, Barb!

Today, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) announced the release of the 2010 edition of Public Libraries in the United States Survey.

It appears in two parts:

• a glossy-paper-style analytical report, which can be found here, and
• the usual state-by-state tables, which can be found here

As 2013 begins, the RSL Research Group is off-and-running on its 2013-14 study of Limitless Libraries, the innovative partnership of Nashville Public Library and Metro Nashville Public Schools.  Watch here for updates on the study as it progresses.  For more information about Limitless Libraries, visit its website.

The 2012 edition of the Library Journal Index of Public Library Service is now available.  It is the fifth edition of the index, on which I collaborate with colleague Ray Lyons.

Don’t miss his blog, Library Performance, at http://libperformance.com/.

We are especially grateful this year for the help of LJ’s new Executive Editor, Josh Hadro.  Getting this year’s edition online on schedule required extraordinary efforts by Josh and his team, working in Manhattan in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

Congratulations to Mirah J. Dow, Jacqueline McMahon Lakin, and Stephen C. Court on their Kansas school library impact study titled School Librarian Staffing Levels and Student Achievement as Represented in 2006–2009 Kansas Annual Yearly Progress Data.  It was published in School Library Research, the AASL online journal, back in August 2012 and just came to my attention.  I believe it’s the first such study to use annual yearly progress (AYP) data–a significant landmark in this body of research.

According to several attendees of this year’s SLJ Summit, the newly released Pennsylvania study–How Pennsylvania School Libraries Pay Off:  Investments in Student Achievement and Academic Standards–was a hot topic at that event.  Here’s the account of the study provided by SLJ.