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Michael Enyart, Michael Cohen named 2012 Librarians of the Year
Posted 4/13/2012
MADISON, Wis. – The 2012 Librarians of the Year were announced during the annual Librarians Assembly awards banquet held April 12 in Lathrop Hall. The recipients of this year’s honors are Michael Enyart, Director of the Business Library, and Michael L. Cohen, Interim Head of Cataloging, General Library System.
Michael Enyart received the Librarian of the Year award given to a librarian who has worked more than ten years for the Libraries. He has served as Director of the Business Library since 1989. Before beginning his work at UW-Madison, he was Assistant Director of Public Service at the Jackson District Library in Jackson, MI; prior to that he was the Business Information Services Librarian for the Milwaukee Public Library. Michael has also been published in the journal Special Libraries on the topic of reference services, and he is involved with many library and campus committees.
Michael has shown a deep commitment to implementing improvements and innovations. Michael designed the new Business Library and coordinated the transition from the old facility to the new. He also managed the remodeling project for the Journalism Reading Room. His work to secure funding enables the Business Library to offer patrons a more complete collection and expanded computer resources, and his continued liaison work ensures that patrons are made aware of and encouraged to utilize the libraries’ resources. It is evident that he believes in providing quality library service at every level. As one of his colleagues wrote, “There is nothing in this library that he wouldn’t do. It’s not just a job to him. A typical day in the Business Library could easily find him checking out a book, helping a student with a technical problem, meeting with faculty in their office, instructing students in the downloading of business statistical data, or even crawling under workstations if necessary.”
Michael Cohen won the award for Librarian of the Year for under 10 years of service. He has served as Head of Copy Cataloging and Catalog Maintenance since 2003, as well as the Interim Head of Cataloging, General Library System since 2011. Prior to joining the General Library System, Michael worked at numerous libraries, including the South Central Library System, the Legislative Reference Bureau, and Center for Instructional Materials and Computing (now MERIT). Michael has also served as a Guest Lecturer, School of Library and Information Studies, UW-Madison, and presented at several conferences.
Michael is involved in many groups and initiatives that aim to improve UW-Madison’s library collections, facilities, and resources, such as the Forward resource discovery project and his work on eliminating duplicate materials holdings. Much of what he does is centered on making sure these large-scale projects run smoothly, and he has proven himself to be knowledgeable, dependable, and a pleasure to work with. Michael has taken a leadership role in numerous committees and acts as a resource not only for the UW-Madison libraries, but for UW System libraries as well. He also takes an active role in advocating for his coworkers, including serving on the UW-Madison Academic Staff Assembly as the District 476 (Memorial Library) representative. His attitude is as highly valued as his expertise; as one colleague stated, “[W]e all recognize Michael’s commitment to ‘getting it right’ and to working with others. Would that we all could be so charitable in our interactions while also being so productive.”
An earlier version of this press release incorrectly stated that Michael Enyart is the Director of the Business and Social Science Reference Libraries. Thomas Durkin is the librarian for the Social Science Reference Library.
