Keystone Systems wishes to recognize the support that volunteers and staff provide to their organizations. We do so with the Julie Klauber Award. Each organization may nominate one staff member or volunteer. Please use the Julie Klauber Award Nomination form to do so.
Nomination Deadline: Friday, May 21
Award nominees should:
- Work with KLAS in their daily job functions
- Show an outstanding service to their organization and / or their community in the spirit of Julie Klauber during his / her time with the library.
The Julie Klauber Award Recipient will be honored as part of an online award ceremony held Tuesday, June 7 during the 2021 KLAS Users’ Conference and receive a personalized plaque to commemorate their achievement. For 2021, we especially wish to recognize someone who went above and beyond during the last year’s challenges.
Award finalists will be selected from all nominated individuals by a selection committee1. James Burts, Keystone Systems, will determine this year's recipient after consulting all the finalists' supervisors.
Printable flyer and online award nomination link:
Who was Julie Klauber and why is this award named after her?
Valerie Lewis sent the below text in an email to the klasusers listserv on January 24, 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
2021 Julie Klauber Award Committee Members include:
- Teresa Kalber, Colorado Talking Book Library
- Lisa Nelson - Utah State Library Program for the Blind and Disabled
- Chandra Thornton, Palm Beach County Library System
- Kimberly Tomlinson, Wisconsin Talking Book and Braille Library
- Pepper Watson - Oklahoma Library for the Blind, Accessible Instructional Materials Center
- Andrea Ewing Callicutt - Keystone Systems, Inc.
