Peter McCracken & Ulrich's Serials Librarianship Award

[Maria Michelle Sitko <sitko@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.