Elizabeth Dehne and Kristen Meyer have been selected the 2005 recipients of the Caroline Smerk Memorial Award, while Megan Macken will receive the first Art Librarianship Award in honor of Joyce G. Taylor. The awards recognize MLS students for excellence in art librarianship.

"Elizabeth, Kristen, and Megan are intelligent and gifted students," said B.J. Irvine, head of the IU Fine Arts Library on the Bloomington campus. "Each has the potential to make significant contributions to art librarianship in her career."

The Caroline Smerk Memorial Award, established in 1994, is given by Caroline's parents, George M. and Mary Ann Smerk, of Bloomington, to assist SLIS students preparing for a career in art librarianship. Caroline, a 1984 SLIS graduate, was an art librarian at the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library at the time of her death in 1992.

A generous contribution from an anonymous donor in 2005 has created the Art Librarianship Award in honor of Joyce G. Taylor. A retired SLIS faculty member who continues to teach in the SLIS program at Indianapolis, Taylor has long been involved in research related to art librarianship, beginning with her dissertation, "Art Exhibition Catalogs: An Exploratory Study of Patron Accessibility in Selected Academic and Museum Art Libraries."

Posted February 24, 2005