Luke Vilelle
Christopher C. Peters

2010 Reference Service Press
Award Winners

To read this award-winning article, click here.

The winners of the 2010 Reference Service Press Award are Luke Vilelle, public services librarian at Hollins University's Wyndham Robertson Library, and Christopher C. Peters, stacks manager at Virginia Tech's University Library. They were awarded the $2,500 prize for their article "Don't Shelve the Questions: Defining Good Customer Service for Shelvers," which was published in Reference & User Services Quarterly (Fall, 2008, pages 60-67).

Vilelle and Peters are the recipients of the 24th annual Reference Service Press Award, which was established to recognize the most outstanding article published in the Reference and User Services Association's membership journal, Reference & User Services Quarterly, during the preceding two volume years. Criteria used to selected the award-winning article include: originality, timeliness, rigor of research, quality of writing, and relevance to the association's areas of interest and concern.

While many articles have addressed the importance of staff training as it relates to effective customer service, only Vilelle and Peters' article focuses on a group that is not frequently considered: part-time assistants who work as shelvers in the library's stacks. It is this focus that has set this article apart, according to Edward Kownslar, Reference Service Press Award Committee chair. "The authors provide good customer service training techniques for departments that use part-time assistants who do not work at a service desk, but will still have some interaction with the library's users," observed Kownslar.

This $2,500 award is funded by Reference Service Press, a library-oriented reference book publishing company specializing in the development of financial aid resources. Its president, Gail Schlachter, has been active in the Reference and User Services Association for more than three decades, serving over the years as the Reference Book Editor of RQ, (the predecessor of Reference & User Services Quarterly), the Editor-in-Chief of Reference & User Services Quarterly, and the President of the association. In appreciation for the opportunity to serve in these positions, she established this annual award in 1986.

Source: ALA Press Release, May 4, 2010.

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