Retirees Earn Honors from Library Associations

Retired WSU librarians Vicki Croft and Marilyn Von Seggern recently received honors from the Medical Library Association and the American Library Association.

Croft, former head of the WSU Animal Health Library, shared MLA’s Erich Meyerhoff Prize with Susanne K. Whitaker, retired veterinary librarian at Cornell University, for best unpublished essay on the history of medicine and the allied sciences written by a health sciences librarian.

Croft and Whitaker co-authored “The Role of Accreditation on the Evolution of United States and Canadian Veterinary School Libraries in the Late 19th and 20th Centuries.” Their paper, which incorporated materials from WSU’s Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections, was chosen for the Meyerhoff prize for its originality and relevance to the topic of accreditation standards for veterinary medical libraries.

Von Seggern, former WSU government documents librarian, earned the Bernadine Abbott Hoduski Founders Award from the ALA’s Government Documents Roundtable (GODORT) for significant contributions to the field of state, international, local or federal documents. The award recognizes those whose contributions have benefited not only the individual’s institution but also the profession.

Von Seggern was active in the Northwest Government Information Network and served as WSU’s representative to the Technical Report Archive and Image Library from 2010 until her retirement in 2017. Marilyn also made wide-ranging contributions to GODORT, across at least six committees and all three task forces. One highlight was her work on the State Databases Project for Washington, which she maintained with thoroughness and meticulous detail.