Strong leadership and scholarly service to the academic community and to the citizens of the state are among the traits demonstrated by Martha Hanscom, University Libraries principal cataloger, the recipient of the 2003 Agnes Milstead Distinguished Librarianship Award at the University of Wyoming.

“Martha typifies the many qualities of the Agnes Milstead award,” says Maggie Ferrell, UW dean of libraries. “She creates metadata for Wyoming publications that improves access to the scholarly record for the university community and Wyoming citizens.”

In nominating Hanscom for the award, colleagues expressed their appreciation of her abilities to analyze situations and make practical recommendations to improve library organization and service.
“During her tenure at the UW Libraries, she has been a steady, low-key, pragmatic force for excellence in cataloging and database quality,” a colleague states.

Hanscom is responsible for training cataloging librarians and technicians. Her collection development work as a subject bibliographer for German and Religious Studies and contributions as a member of the Collection Development Committee and Collection Analysis Project have been significant.

Her expertise in cataloging has been recognized on the national level through her designation as an Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) ENHANCE coordinator and as the UW coordinator and liaison to the Name Authority Cooperative Program project, which assures authoritative data to libraries in the United States and abroad. She also has served on many statewide cataloging committees, including the Wyoming Libraries Database Network Online Quality Committee.

This past year, Hanscom has been involved in regional digitization efforts with the Western Trails grant project. As a member of the Western States Digital Standards Group Metadata Working Group, she has written and compiled the document, “Western States Dublin Core Metadata Element Set,” that will be used as the standard for the project.

“Martha clearly demonstrates personal initiative and commitment to the university, Wyoming and Wyoming libraries,” says a colleague. “Her contributions to the body of Wyoming bibliographic and authority information will stand the test of time.”

Hanscom earned a bachelor’s degree in German (1970) from Kalamazoo (Mich.) College, and a master’s degree in library science (1972) from Western Michigan University. She joined the UW Libraries in 1982.

Go to Awards page