Kimberely Lione Paone
Mark Winston

2003 Reference Service Press
Award Winners

The 2003 winners of the Reference Service Press award are Kimberely Lione Paone, teen services librarian at Elizabeth Public Library (in Elizabeth, New Jersey) and Mark Winston, assistant professor in the Department of Library and Information Sciences at Rutgers University. They were awarded the $2,500 prize for their article "Reference and Information Services for Young Adults: A Research Study of Public Libraries in New Jersey," which was published in the Fall 2001 issue of Reference and User Services Quarterly (also known as RUSQ). Want to read this award-winning article online? Click here.

Paone and Winston are the recipients of the 17th annual Reference Service Press Award, which was established in 1986 to recognize the most outstanding article published in the Reference and User Services Association's membership journal, RUSQ, during the preceding two volume years. Criteria include originality, timeliness, rigor of research, quality of writing, and relevance to RUSA's areas of interest and concern.

The winning article reports on a survey conducted of all the public libraries in New Jersey. The results indicate that while services are provided for young adults, those services are less formalized than those for other service populations. The authors conclude that libraries have missed opportunities to enhance the services provided to young adults.

According to Lynn K. Chmelir, the award committee chair, the article was chosen because it is "impressive, well thought out, based on excellent research, and well written." Chmelir goes on to explain: "It assess issues of considerable importance to young adult librarians by describing an innovative approach to assessing the quality of reference and information services provided to young adult patrons."

Reference Service Press is a library-oriented reference book publishing company specializing in the preparation of financial aid resources. Its president, Gail Schlachter, was recently elected to her third term on ALA Council; in the past, she has made outstanding professional contributions to the field of reference librarianship as the Reference Book Editor of RQ, (the predecessor of Reference and User Services Quarterly), Editor-in-Chief of Reference and User Services Quarterly, and President of the Reference and User Services Association.

Source: American Library Association press release, March, 2003.