University of Arkansas Librarian Wins Profession’s Highest Award

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Tony Stankus

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Tony Stankus, professor and life sciences librarian at the University of Arkansas Libraries, has been named a Fellow of the Special Libraries Association during its centennial year celebrations. The honor of Fellow of Special Libraries Association is given to recognize leadership in careers as information professionals or librarians. Fellowship in the Special Libraries Association is bestowed on mid-career professionals in recognition of past, present and future service to the association and the profession. The designation is presented annually to no more than five active professionals, and is the association’s highest award.

One of the most published librarians in America, Stankus graduated summa cum laude from Holy Cross, where he was Science Librarian for 34 years, and was named Crusader of the Year by its Greater Worcester Alumni. He received his Master of Library Science from the University of Rhode Island, where he taught special librarianship for 25 years, and which subsequently named him Distinguished Alumnus of the Year in 1992. In 2005, in recognition of his years of service, and for publishing 10 books, 120-plus articles, as well as serving more than 25 years as an editor of the journal Science & Technology Libraries, the Special Libraries Association awarded him its Rose Vormelker Award for Mentoring in the Profession. In 2007, the Rhode Island SLA Chapter named him its Special Librarian of the Year.

After arriving in Arkansas in the fall of 2007, Stankus was nominated as director of the association’s BioMedical and Life Sciences Division (known as the DBIO), became master of its DBIO blog, and was asked to add reference, instructional and collection support service for the university’s departments of animal science, poultry science, food science and entomology (all subjects entirely new to him) to his original assignment of biology and nursing — all within his first week of employment. Since then he has published nine more papers (five of them appearing in the Journal of Agricultural & Food Information), and over 80 evidence-based DBIO blog postings that average over 1,000 hits monthly at http://sla-divisions.typepad.com/dbio/.

In recognition of the Special Library Association’s centennial, Stankus organized a poll to identify the 100 most influential journals of biology and medicine over the last 100 years and the corresponding awards ceremony to be held in June 2009 in Washington, D.C. Stankus recruited the three expert teams to identify superior journals in specialist fields for the ballot, which was subsequently voted on by the DBIO membership, served as the arbiter of disputes over disciplinary boundaries, and was final editor of the poll.

The Special Libraries Association is a nonprofit global organization for innovative information professionals and their strategic partners serving business, government, social agencies, and the academic community. Over the past one hundred years, its members have been working on the technological edge, moving into knowledge services and adapting to new roles to keep up with the times. The association serves more than 11,000 members in 75 countries in the information profession, including corporate, academic, and government information specialists. For more information, visit www.sla.org.