Each year, GSLIS gives four major awards to graduating students. We've profiled each of the students below and invite you to read full Q&As on the GSLIS Student Profile pages. Many congratulations to each of the award winners and all of this year's GSLIS graduates!

GSLIS West Leadership Award: Adam Williams

This award is given to an outstanding GSLIS West student who best exemplifies the leadership values of academic excellence, community building, service, and commitment to the success of other students and the program. This year's recipient was Adam Williams.

Adam began at GSLIS in Fall 2006, and was the LISSA West President for 2007-2008. During that year, he and the LISSA West team brought students together into an active community by providing leadership and initiating new and creative ways to build relationships. In addition to organizing public speaking events on public, school, and academic libraries, and on archives, he arranged a number of well attended social events. Of these, the most popular wasn't what you'd expect.

"My legacy is bowling," Adam says, with only a little bit of tongue in cheek. Bowling was originally begun by a previous generation of student leaders. Adam "expanded on their work. Setting up events at the bowling alley proved to be a good way to connect with fellow students and faculty at GSLIS-West as well as area librarians outside the program." LISSA West also challenged the Boston Campus LISSA leaders to a "grand bowling match," bringing West and East together.

Adam focused his coursework on management, reference, and technology. While a student, he also worked as a Thrive Circuit Rider. Through a grant received by the Western Massachusetts Regional Library System (WMRLS), he and his colleagues assisted libraries serving populations under 2,000 to update their collections. The grant also enabled WMRLS to build websites for a handful of small libraries. He is now working as a reference librarian at the Springfield (MA) Technical Community College Library.

ASIS&T Outstanding Information Science Student Award: Jen Langley

The Simmons Student Chapter of the American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T) awards an annual prize for service to the chapter and for academic achievement in information science. This year's recipient was Jen Langley.

While at GSLIS, Jen says, "I took as many classes with the word "digital" in the title as possible!" This included Digital Libraries, where she served on the web committee, and Digital Publishing, where she wrote about Open Access. She also took Database Management, Web Development and Information Architecture, and Social Informatics. Her most valuable experience while a student, however, was taking part in the GSLIS Information Architecture (IA) Project, which formed the framework for the 2009 GSLIS Website redesign. One of a group of six students who worked on the project as part of an independent study, Jen was part of the Paper Prototyping team and also acted as the 'schematic wrangler,' creating wireframes of the different iterations of the IA team's proposed structure. "I worked harder on the IA project than on anything else in Library School and it turned out to be one of the best experiences of my 2 ½ years," she says.

In addition to taking a full schedule of courses at GSLIS, Jen was Chair of the Simmons College Student Chapter of ASIS&T while also working full time as a Web Manager with YouthBuild USA. Now the Associate Director of Information Systems, she uses what she learned about databases, user testing, web development, social software, and information organization at work every day.

Estelle Jussim Award: Caro Pinto

The Estelle Jussim Award is given each year to a graduating GSLIS student who has demonstrated great promise in the visual arts. It honors Dr. Estelle Jussim, a GSLIS faculty member who was a distinguished photographic historian and scholar, and who exhibited professional accomplishments in the visual arts and high academic achievement. GSLIS was pleased to present the 2009 Estelle Jussim award to Caroline "Caro" Pinto.

Caro is a dynamic and innovative library and archives professional with background in teaching and research. With a second masters in American History and an undergraduate degree in History from Smith College, she has gained experience in Archives and Special Collections at Harvard University, Amherst College, Northeastern University, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst where much of her work involved creating better access to audio-visual material. Since 2006, Caro has been a graduate advisor and teaching assistant at the University of Massachusetts where she is widely recognized by colleagues and students as an excellent instructor who successfully engages students in the learning process.

While at GSLIS, Caro loved taking Visual Communication and Archiving and Preserving Digital Media. "It was exciting to consider how to tackle the challenges of producing, sharing, and preserving scholarship in the digital age," she says. She also enjoyed working with a number of other Simmons alumni at Amherst College on a project to process the Henry Steele Commager papers , which was, she says, "a remarkable experience."

Kenneth R. Shaffer Outstanding Student Award: Meaghan O'Connor

Meaghan O'Connor is the recipient of the Kenneth R. Shaffer Outstanding Student Award. The award is given each year to a student whom the faculty has identified as outstanding and possessing great leadership potential. It honors Dr. Shaffer who was director of the school for almost 30 years. To read more about Meaghan, read the Up Front in this issue.