MLA Honors Dukelow

Ruth Dukelow Awarded 2009 Librarian of the Year

 MLC congratulates Ruth Dukelow on being named Librarian of the Year by the Michigan Library Association.  This award honors Ruth for her service to Michigan libraries over the past 25 years.

From 1984-1995, Ruth worked in the Library Development Division as the first Library Establishment Specialist (legal specialist) at the Library of Michigan. While at the Library of Michigan, Ruth specialized in “hand-holding” of libraries while they worked through a myriad of legal and policy issues – privacy, copyright, millages, personnel, and First Amendment access/censorship, as well as helping them fend off occasional threats from municipal bodies.

During her tenure at the Library of Michigan, she worked with Marianne Hartzell at MLA to revise the District Library law to improve millage funding for public libraries.  Ruth worked with numerous library boards to help them re-establish as district libraries including Van Buren District Library (the first library to re-establish in 1989 under the new law), Kalamazoo, Ann Arbor, Fowlerville, Howell, Capital Area District Library, and many others.  She and state law librarian, Charles Wolfe, wrote the Library Law Handbook and the Trustee Manual, and they developed a series of Library Trustee Workshops and Library Law Workshops that they offered annually through the Cooperatives at locations across the state.  She wrote a book, The Library Copyright Guide, that was published in 1992 by AECT.

Ruth is currently the Associate Director at MLC, where she has worked since 1995. At MLC, she has worked on the MeL project since its inception as AccessMichigan in 1997, and she was responsible for the implementation and training of what is now MeL Databases. She also worked with Diana Mitchell to start up MLC’s successful group licensing program, and she is currently working with Evette Atkin to start up the Michigan Evergreen project, an open-source shared ILS for Michigan libraries. In her role at MLC, she has continued to assist Michigan libraries with copyright questions, and in 2007 she was selected to be a Copyright Scholar on ALA’s Copyright Advisory Network.  She is also responsible for creating the Michigan Libraries Wiki, which provides a resource for information and news about libraries’ activities, policies, and projects, and she works with Heather Thomas to put together MLC’s cutting-edge special programs each semester.

[30 Jun 2009]