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In a speech, Julia Gelfand is very humbled to receive the John Ames Humphry/OCLC/Forest Press Award for International Librarianship. As New York State Librarian and Assistant Commissioner of the New York State Education Department and library director of libraries including the Brooklyn Public Library now renowned for their services to large communities of non-English speakers, he promoted multilingual collections and library services. She expresses gratitude to the International Relations Committee for establishing this award in 1987 nearly 40 years ago and as the International Relations Roundtable celebrates its 75th anniversary this year, it is especially meaningful to reflect on the contributions of previous recipients and the work that IRRT is currently engaged in. Among those they remember the recent passing of Patricia Oyler, a renowned library school educator who received this award in 2009.
Tu very humbled to be here receiving this award and thank OCLC and Forest Press for honoring John Ames Humphry and his legacy of international reach through his leadership at Forest Press in extending the Dewey Decimal system in multiple languages by sponsoring this award. As New York State Librarian and Assistant Commissioner of the New York State Education Department and library director of libraries including the Brooklyn Public Library now renowned for their services to large communities of non-English speakers, he promoted multilingual collections and library services.
1 thank the International Relations Committee for establishing this award in 1987 nearly 40 years ago and as the International Relations Roundtable celebrates its
75™ anniversary this year, it is especially meaningful to reflect on the contributions of previous recipients and the work that IRRT is currently engaged in. Among those we remember the recent passing of Patricia Oyler, a renowned library school educator who received this award in 2009. I thank and acknowledge those who contributed to my nomination packet and hope that my international focus continues as I celebrate my retirement after 48 years of practice. It was at ALA in 1977 in Detroit that I parked myself at the Job Placement Center seeking my first position and experienced the wonders of ALA and first joined IRRT.
My own career has been global from the beginning. Upon graduating from Goucher College fifty years ago this year, I was named a Thomas J. Watson Fellow and allowed to spend a year traveling through Western Europe studying national library systems. That was my first trip abroad and relying upon public libraries and working in government libraries, I was convinced that my career goals would have an international component from then on. I attended the International Graduate School of Librarianship at the College of Librarianship Wales in Aberystwyth, as it was called then, and took several courses in international librarianship with giants in the field, such as the late Frank Hogg dedicated to library development around the world. I later taught international librarianship as an adjunct library school faculty member at several institutions for nearly 20 years.
I returned to the United States and received my MSLS at Case Western Reserve University when it had a School of Library Science, and found myself among fellow students and faculty from all parts of the world, as well as at a testbed site for OCLC pioneering technologies. I was fortunate to study with Alan Rees, Tefko Saracevic, William Goffman, and others whose influence is still recognized. The Baker Building was truly a microcosm of the globe, on Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, several miles up from the infamous Cleveland Public Library, another icon of our profession.
I was fortunate to work in libraries that promoted strong professional development opportunities. 1 received the Fulbright UK. Professional Librarian Research Award in 1992-93 and was based at the Science Museum / Imperial College Libraries in London where I hosted the first international Scholarly Communication in the Sciences Symposium bringing together librarians, publishers and professional societies, modeled somewhat after the merits of the Charleston Conference, which has influenced me
greatly. I presented my research from that Fulbright experience at my first IFLA conference in Barcelona in 1993 and got hooked and remain steadfastly committed to international cooperation. The colleagues and friends I made through international connections have stayed with me as I became active in IFLA, IATUL and numerous other national library associations, often collaborating and leading various initiatives in the areas that evolved into collection management and STEM librarianship, including hosting the 1996 conference at my campus.
Fast forward to today, when I have just retired from the University of California, Irvine Libraries after nearly 44 years of service there. I will begin my second Fulbright Award in January 2026 when I will go to the Botswana International University of Science and Technology in Palaply, Botswana for six months to develop several professional development programs with the staff there and become engaged with library members of the SANLiC consortia in South Africa which the Botswana institutions have recently joined. I still have much to learn from all these new relationships.
It 1s the friendships, collegiality, collaboration, and common goals that have made my career so special and sparked the ability to travel, visit libraries, attend international conferences and share experiences. My husband, David Lang has been dragged to library meetings and library visits on our many travels and I thank him for his love and support that has made my career so special.
Yesterday, I spent several shifts at the International Visitors" Booth and that is always a special place to connect with librarians from overseas, aiding them to navigate the richness we have in resources at ALA and I hope you join me in celebrating the 75% anniversary of IRRT this year by participating in the webinars, programs, committees, publications, and sharing your ideas by contributing to International Leads and the endowment that makes all this outreach possible so that we can continue to attract colleagues from around the world from whom we can learn and partner with. I served on many IRRT committees that planned this event in numerous cities from New Orleans, Washington, Chicago, San Diego and never imagined that I would be a recipient of this award. Thanks again, for this honor. I treasure it.
June 28, 2025
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