The Julie Klauber Award is one way we at Keystone Systems recognize the invaluable support that volunteers and staff provide to their organizations and their patrons. Each organization may nominate one staff member or volunteer using the nomination form at the bottom of this article. The EXTENDED deadline for nominations is Friday, January 31. The selected 2025 Julie Klauber Award Honoree will receive a trip to the 2025 KLAS Users' Conference to be held in Indianapolis, IN, March 17-20. More information about the award, nomination and selection process, etc, is below.

Who was Julie Klauber?

Julie Klauber was a national expert and leader on disability issues and was instrumental in helping develop Keystone's growing national presence. In 2012, Julie received the ASCLA Francis Joseph Campbell Award recognizing her work advancing library services for patrons who are blind and print disabled. Julie served as the director of the Talking Books Plus Library in Suffolk, County, NY and authored several articles on library resources and services for people with disabilities. Additionally, she created and maintained the newsletter Disability Resources Monthly and the corresponding website www.disabilityresources.org. Julie passed away on September 3, 2002 after a long, brave struggle with cancer.

A word about Julie Klauber from her former coworker:

Valerie Lewis sent the below email to the KLASUsers listserv in January, 2011:

It has been more than eight years since Julie passed away. Her name comes up every day.....truly, it does. I work with 5 other people who worked with Julie for many years. I sit in the office that was once hers. Her husband and sons are often in my home. I work with her husband Avery, to continue the important work that she and he started many years before I was lucky enough to meet them.

Julie was a librarian, but more she was the truest advocate for access to library programs, services and materials for all, particularly people with disabilities.

In addition to being the librarian for the sub-regional library that served Long Island, NY, Julie and her husband established a non-profit organization that provided information and referral resources for librarians, service providers and individuals living with disabilities.......long before and into the earlier days....of the internet.

Julie spent truly all of her time making sure that people with disabilities had access to information.....all information. She created partnerships with local and national corporations that brought assistive technology to local libraries. She created library resources in alternative formats and worked with libraries and librarians across the country, to promote accessible library services.

It has been my honor to be a member of the Julie Klauber Award Committee. It has given me the opportunity to read about lbph staff and volunteers who create new and innovative ways of making library materials, services and programs accessible to their patrons. Something still so difficult to do, even in these technologically advanced times.

You may think that the daily practices and procedures of operating a library for the blind and physically disabled are hum-drum and nothing out of the ordinary, but think again. It is through the work and creativity of each and every member or your organization, that people with disabilities have access to information....something we treasure so dearly and take so for granted.

On that note, we encourage you to think about how the wheels of your organization turn and who are the people turning it.

With warm regards,

Valerie Lewis, Director
Long Island Talking Book Library

Who can be nominated for the Julie Klauber Award?

Each KLAS library or organization may nominate one staff member or volunteer who: 

• Works with KLAS in their daily job functions.
• Has demonstrated outstanding service to their organization and / or their community in the spirit of Julie Klauber during their time with the library.
• Will appreciate and benefit from attending the KLAS Users' Conference.

Please use the below form to submit your nominee's info before end of business Friday, January 24.

What does the award recipient receive and how are they selected?

The selected Julie Klauber Award Recipient receives a trip to the 2025 KLAS Users' Conference to be held in Indianapolis, IN, March 17-20 and will be will be honored as part of an award ceremony held during the conference's opening general session the afternoon of Monday, March 17 including receiving a personalized plaque to commemorate their achievement. The trip includes one round-trip coach ticket on Delta Airlines from the recipient's nearby major city to an airport near the conference location and hotel expenses for a single occupancy for March 17-20. Conference registration fees are covered by Keystone Systems, Inc. and meals are provided by the conference. If the recipient needs / desires a travel companion, such a person may be accommodated at Keystone CEO James Burts' discretion. 

Award finalists will be selected from all nominated individuals by the 2025 Julie Klauber Award Committee including:

• Teresa Kalber, Colorado Talking Book Library, 2011 Julie Klauber Award Recipient
• Lisa Nelson, Utah State Library Program for the Blind and Disabled
• Pepper Watson, Oklahoma Library for the Blind, Accessible Instructional Materials Center
• Erin Pawlus, Arizona Talking Book Library
• James Gleason, Perkins Braille and Talking Book Library
• Andrea Ewing Callicutt, Keystone Systems, Inc.

James Burts, CEO of Keystone Systems, will then determine the 2025 recipient after consulting with all the finalists' supervisors.

Biographies of previous Julie Klauber Award Recipients are available at the Julie Klauber Award Winners page.

Julie Klauber Award Nomination Form

We'd like to introduce you to our 2025 Julie Klauber Award winner, Natalia Renfro, Kansas State Library Talking Books, and thought the best way to do so is by sharing the nomination we received for her. Maggie Witte, Kansas State Library Talking Books, described Natalia (Nataly) as "a hard, consistent worker who works well with the library team dedicated to making sure all of our patrons have access to the players and materials they need for a fulfilling informed and personalized reading experience."

Keystone Systems is honored to provide Nataly a trip to the 2025 KLAS Users' Conference, where she will be recognized during Monday's opening general session. An official press release will be published just before the award ceremony.

Nataly's Nomination for the 2025 Julie Klauber Award:

How do you know the nominee? Have you worked with them? If so, in what capacity?

Nataly started working for Kansas Talking Books in 2016 as one of our circulation clerks working closely with all of the staff and working as our machine for the last few years. I have worked with her in ensuring all of the books are found, creating No Due Date titles such as the Bible, helping patrons figure out issues with their DTBMs, and just as a team to ensure everyone has access to what they need.

What service(s) has the nominee done in the spirit of Julie Klauber?

Nataly ensures that patrons have access to our services by carefully managing the checking in and out, storage, and upkeep of the digital talking book players so patrons have as little disruption in their reading experience as possible. She is patient and supportive when patrons call with player issues, helping them check for errors if they can and/or getting replacement players in the mail as quickly as possible. When mail issues arise, she calmly works with patrons, other Kansas Talking Books (KTB) staff, and even the post office to see if the issue can be determined or to find a solution, if possible. She also helps patrons get access to audio-described movies, advocating for the addition of movies that meet their needs, circulating those movies when the patrons request, and making sure they are ready for the next patron. It is through her efforts that our patrons have access to informational and recreational materials and the playback equipment to access those items. She is also bilingual and assists our Spanish-only patrons to find and check out the books they like or adjust their accounts accordingly.

How do they affect your library/community and/or the KLAS Users’ Community?

She is always supportive of all the efforts of staff, assisting in any way she can. She is compassionate towards patrons, caring for their point of view. She helps the library circulation run smoothly with her efforts.

What are the nominees job responsibilities and how do they relate to KLAS?

Her job responsibilities are:

• maintaining the inventory of digital talking book players and check players in and out to patrons when they return them for maintenance or for other reasons using Equipment module;
  adding No Due Date materials, such as the Bible and other religious texts, using KLAS, ensuring there are always the religious texts patrons are interested available using the Circulation module;
• adding audio-described movie titles to the collection and maintaining that collection which she creates records for those titles in the collection and adds all the necessary metadata for them using the Catalog module;
• handles the readers advisory and circulation of audio-described movies to patrons who ask for them using the Patron module;
• assisting patrons with player issues or calling previous patrons or their family members to attempt to retrieve digital talking book players which she uses KLAS to look up accounts and make notes in the comments using the Patron and Equipment modules;
• assist Spanish-only patrons with their accounts by making changes to preferences or adding books to their service queues in the Patron module;
• assists in cataloging duties as available in the Catalog module.

In 2025, Keystone will partner with the Indiana State Library, Talking Book and Braille Library Service to bring the KLAS Users' Conference to Indianapolis, Indiana.

The KLAS User' Group planning committees have already been hard at work, and are excited to share more specifics about our second hybrid conference. Now, on to all the details you need to start planning your 2025 KLAS Users' Conference attendance:

• Dates: March 17-20, 2025
• Location:Indianapolis, IN
• Theme: Driving Innovative Inclusion in Libraries - Start Your Engines!

2025 KLAS Users' Conference Zoom Event

• ALL conference attendees will use the 2025 KLAS Users' Conference Zoom Event throughout the conference. 
• The conference logo graphicto the right is a direct link to the KLAS UC 2025 Zoom Event.
• Important notes about the KLAS UC2025 Zoom Event:
  • Use your individual Zoom account credentials to log into the KLAS UC2025 Zoom Event.
  • Session times are based on your local time zone.
  • General Sessions will be in a webinar format and streamed directly to the lobby. Virtual attendees will be able to comment / ask questions via the chat function, but can't use their computer camera / mic.
  • All Breakout sessions will be in a meeting format in which virtual attendees can be on camera, use their microphone, and / or the Zoom chat function.

Using the KLAS UC2025 Zoom Event

• How to initially access & navigate the KLAS UC 2025 Zoom Event
• You will use the KLAS UC2025 Zoom Event to:
  • bookmark sessions, create a personal schedule, and export your schedule to your personal calendar
  • view speaker information
  • watch and join conference sessions virtually
  • access session slidedecks and handouts
  • chat with other attendees
  • get conference announcements and updates
  • watch session recordings after the event
  • and more!

From Maureen Dorosinski, KLAS Users' Group President:

There will be a discussion and a vote on the edits below, and for anything else about the bylaws the users would like to discuss, during the 2025 KLAS Users' Conference Users' Group Business meeting. This will be held during the last day of the conference, Thursday, March 20, 2025, This is a hybrid general session from 11:45 am-2:00 pm Eastern time.

1. Article VI, Vice-President: the sentence, "May be required to perform President’s duties if the President is unavailable." now says "The Vice-President may be required to perform President’s duties if the President is unavailable."
2. Article IX: the underline for Robert's Rules of Order extended past the word "Order.", this is fixed.
3. Also, Robert's needed an apostrophe "s", this is fixed.
4. Added to Article X: Minor revisions like the correction of typos, misspellings, or grammatical errors do not require the approval of the membership.

Current KLAS Users' Group Bylaws with above suggested edits:

• Klas_User_Group_Bylaws_Draft_2025.docx
• Klas_User_Group_Bylaws_Draft_2025.pdf

A brief tour of the 2025 KLAS Users' Conference Zoom Event is available below. Once you are registered, please make sure that you can access the event, and contact us if you need help (preferably before the conference begins). 

Accessing the KLAS UC 2025 Zoom Event for the first time:

1. If you registered by credit card, use your Zoom account log-in email address and password to log-in to the 2025 KLAS Users' Conference Zoom Event.
2. If you have are a Guest attendee or paid your conference fee via Invoice, you will be sent an email from "Zoom Events <>;" with the subject line "You are invited to register for 2025 KLAS Users' Conference" sent to the email address associated with your Zoom account.  The body of the email contains a link to "Register".
   1. You MUST use the "Register" link in the "You are invited to register!" email sent to your email address. The email will look like the image below.
      
   
   
   1. If you cannot find the email, please check your SPAM or JUNK folder.
   2. If it's not in your SPAM or JUNK folder and you need to have the email resent, please contact , and ask for us to do so.
3. Select the "Register" link from within the email. This will take you to the 2025 KLAS Users' Conference Zoom Event.
4. Select the "Register" link in the Zoom Event.
5. Select the appropriate ticket type (Ex: "Invoiced Virtual" = paying by invoice & attending virtually & "Virtual Guest" = guest virtual attendee), select "Continue", answer the registration questions, and then log into the KLAS UC2025 Zoom Event using your Zoom account email and password. 
   • If you don't have a Zoom account, create a free, basic one using the same email address where you received the "Your are invited to register" email here: https://zoom.us/signup#/signup
   
6. If you paid your conference fee via invoice but didn't send us the email address you use to log-into Zoom, you can't claim your ticket and CANNOT access the KLAS UC2025 Zoom Event. So, please send  the email address you use when you log into Zoom ASAP!

Accessibility Resources:

• Zoom Keyboard Shortcuts
• Other Zoom Accessibility information

Important Notes about the KLAS UC2025 Zoom Event:

1. You must log into the KLAS UC2025 Zoom Event with your individual Zoom account credentials. 
2. Session times based on your local time zone.
3. General Sessions will be in a webinar format and streamed directly to the lobby. Virtual attendees will be able to comment / ask questions via the chat function, but can't use their computer camera / mic.
4. All Breakout sessions will be in a meeting format in which virtual attendees can be on camera, use their microphone, and / or the Zoom chat function.

KLAS UC2025 Zoom Event Video Tour:

• Link to the KLAS UC2025 Zoom Event
  • If you don't see the "Join Lobby" link, be sure you're logged-in using your Zoom account credentials.

Mark your calendar and start making your plans for March 17-20, 2025 to join us as Keystone and the Indiana State Library, Talking Book and Braille Library come together to bring the KLAS Users' Conference to Indianapolis, IN!! More info will be coming soon, so be on the lookout.