2009 HLA President Sheryl Lynch was named the 2012 recipient of the HPR Cornerstone Award for her service as a volunteer with Hawaii Public Radio and as Aloha Shorts House Manager. Lynch has also coordinated HLA volunteer opportunities at HPR. Congratulations to Lynch on the honor.

Virginia "Ginny" Tanji, director of the health sciences library at the John A. Burns School of Medicine, has been elected to serve as chair of the Board of Regents of the National Library of Medicine. Her appointment comes as NLM prepares to celebrate its 175th anniversary, which will include a special exhibit that focuses on native peoples, including Native Hawaiians.

The National Library of Medicine is part of the National Institutes of Health. Tanji is one of only two health sciences librarians currently serving on the board. Eight other board members were appointed from leaders in the fields of medicine, dentistry, public health, hospital administration, pharmacology and bioinformatics. The board meets three times a year to advise, consult with, and make recommendations to the director of NLM on matters related to the library.

Tanji said preparation has been underway for some time for this fall's 175th anniversary celebration, which will include the opening of a special exhibit titled Native Voices: Native Peoples' Concept of Illness, on Oct. 5, at the national medical library, which is located in Bethesda, Md.

University of Hawaii at Manoa LIS professor and associate chair Dr. Violet H. Harada is the 2011 recipient of the American Association of School Librarian’s Distinguished Service Award. Established in 1978, the award, sponsored by Baker and Taylor, recognizes an individual member of the library profession who has, over a significant period of time, made an outstanding national contribution to school librarianship and school library development.

Harada was nominated by Carolyn Kirio and Debora Lum.

"Harada is a visionary mentor, instructor, colleague and advocate," read the nomination submitted by Kirio. "She continues to mold/influence librarianship with her expertise and knowledge. [She] is definitely a leader in the field."

Working to advance the profession, Harada has served on many AASL and other national educational association committees. Most recently, she was a member of the learning standards indicators and assessment task force that was charged with developing indicators, benchmarks and model examples from the AASL learning standards. The task force’s work culminated in the publication of "Standards for the 21st-Century Learner In Action." She has represented school library interests as an invited participant of the U.S. Department of Education's America Reads Challenge roundtable and as a member of the Student Learning through Ohio School Libraries international advisory panel.

Locally, Harada has served as an executive board member of the Hawaii Association of School Librarians (HASL) since 1993 and as member of the school library services advisory board in the Hawaii Department of Education. With the DOE, Harada has worked to establish guidelines and models for effective library programming. From 1995-1997, Harada was a commissioner for the Hawaii State Public Library System on the Oahu Public Library Advisory Commission. For her dedication and contributions to school librarianship in Hawaii, HASL awarded Harada with the 1990 Golden Key Award.

Harada has served as a professor in the computer sciences, library and information science program at the University of Hawaii since 1984. According to the nomination application submitted by Lum, "whether teaching graduate students or facilitating workshops for school librarians, Harada creates opportunities to connect theory to practice when developing their programs." For this exceptional teaching, Harada received the 2010 Sarah K. Vann Award for Professional Service and University of Hawaii-Manoa's 1998 Presidential Citation for Meritorious Teaching Award. Her students' success is a testament to her dedicated mentoring, as one has received AASL's School Library Program of the Year award and another was recognized as part of AASL President Nancy Everhart's Vision Tour.

"Dr. Violet Harada exemplifies the qualities worthy of the AASL Distinguished Service Award," said Janice Ostrom, award committee member. "She has received many grants and awards including the AASL ABC-CLIO Leadership Grant to further her research. Dr. Harada's career includes a lifetime of library research and dissemination of the knowledge gained through workshops, conferences, and professional writing. She has influenced the profession as a researcher, teacher, mentor and advocate. It is with great pleasure we honor Dr. Harada's service to the library profession."

The Technical Services Section is delighted to announce that Nancy Sack of the University of Hawai`i at Manoa Library has agreed to serve as the Section Chair. Nancy is planning some exciting programming related to the implementation of RDA (Resource Description and Access) and other developments in technical services. You may contact her at sack@hawaii.edu.

It is with deep regret and sadness that we report the passing of Dr. Karen Peacock.

Karen Peacock was professor emeritus and retired curator of the Pacific Collection, Hamilton Library, University of Hawai'i at Manoa.  She passed away peacefully on Aug. 13, 2010, after a 10-month battle with cancer.

Karen's career with the UH Library spanned more than 30 years.  She began in the Pacific Collection, where she briefly worked in a temporary position before moving into a tenure-track position with the Social Sciences & Humanities reference department.  She returned to the Pacific Collection in 1980 as a Pacific specialist and in 1987 assumed curatorship of the collection upon the retirement of R. Renee Heyum.  In addition to her work as curator of the Pacific Collection, she also served as department head for the Hawaiian & Pacific Collections (formerly Special Collections) at Hamilton Library from 2001 until her retirement.  Karen became ill late last year and officially retired on Feb. 1 of this year.

Born in Richmond, Ind., Karen spent her childhood years in Micronesia where her father, Daniel J. Peacock, served as the director of library services. After receiving her BA from Earlham College (Richmond, Indiana), she returned to Micronesian, and in Saipan she worked briefly for the Congress of Micronesia, the Adult Education Program, and taught at the Marianas High School.

Karen received her Masters of Library Science in 1973, a MA in Pacific Studies in 1978 and PhD in Pacific History in 1990.  She has more than twenty publications to her credit and served at various times on the editorial boards of the Center for Pacific Islands Studies' Pacific monograph series, Contemporary Pacific, Pacific Studies (BYU-Hawai'i), and the Micronesian Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities.

Karen was devoted to the Pacific, especially Micronesia.  She gave a great deal of her time and energy to supporting the work of Pacific libraries and archives and advising and mentoring many of the islanders with whom she came into contact.  In recognition of her efforts, she was honored by the Pacific Islands Association of Libraries and Archives with its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006.  Other awards bestowed upon her included the Outstanding Alumni Award by the UH School of Library and Information Studies, the UH Library's Nina D.P. Horio Excellence in Librarianship Award, and the Dr. Sarah K. Vann Professional Services Award (UH Library and Information Studies program).

Karen is survied by her life partner, Kim Haines, father Daniel J. Peacock, sister Paula Bertolin (brother-in-law Gordon), brother Daniel L. (sister-in-law Lisa) and nieces Caroline & Beth Bertolin.

Arrangements for a memorial service are still pending at this time.

-Lynette Furuhashi and Stuart Dawrs