On July 25, 2005 the Illinois Library Association Award Committee announced that Jay Starratt, Associate Vice Chancellor for Information Technology and Dean of Library and Information Services at SIUE will receive the prestigious Hugh C. Atkinson Memorial Award. The award will be presented to Jay at a reception on October 13, 2005 during the annual conference of the Illinois Library Association in Peoria.
Named for Hugh C. Atkinson (1933 - 1986), director of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library and visionary advocate of multi-type library cooperation in Illinois, the award is given annually either to an individual, a group, a program, or an institution who has made sustained and lasting contributions relating to library cooperation and/or resource-sharing in librarianship.
Jay’s special interest in promoting library cooperation is evident in his imposing record of leadership of cooperative groups. Most recently, he has taken a leadership role in supporting the merging of three state wide library consortia; the Illinois Library Computer Systems Organization (ILCSO); the Illinois Cooperative Collection Management Program (ICCMP); and the Illinois Digital Libraries organization (IDAL). Together the three organizations were merged on July 1, 2005 into the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois or CARLI. Jay was also recently elected to the new Board of Directors of CARLI.
Jay’s contributions to library consortia in Illinois dates back more than a decade: he has served as a member and chair of the ILCSO Policy Council and as President of ILCSO’s Board of Directors. He chaired ILCSO’s Systems Assessment Task Force, which paved the way for ILCSO’s consortium-wide implementation of Endeavor Information Systems, Inc.’s “Voyager” system. Jay has also served as Chair of the Illinois Cooperative Collection Management Program and the Illinois OCLC User Group (IOUG). He is also an elected delegate to the OCLC Members Council where he is a member of the Executive Committee. Jay was one of the authors of the Illinois Academic Library “White Paper” that challenged the academic library community to take bold new steps toward enhanced collaboration, an initiative that is coming to fruition with the formation of CARLI.
Jay received his B.A. and M.L.S. degrees from Emory University. Prior to his current appointment as Library Dean and Vice Chancellor for Information Technology, Jay served as Director of Technical and Automation Services at SIUC’s Morris Library. His previous professional positions include those of Assistant Director for Administrative Services at the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Library and Assistant to the Director and Supervisor of Circulation at Emory University Library.
