SLA Hall of Fame
Presented to SLA members in good standing at or near the end of their active professional careers to recognize service and contributions to the association. Hall of Fame recognition also is granted for prolonged distinguished service to an SLA chapter or division that has contributed to the success of the association.
Want the whole story?
Watch a short video about the 2009 SLA Hall of Fame Inductees, and why they are so deserving of this honor.
SLA Hall of Fame 2009 Inductees
 |
Donna Scheeder
Donna Scheeder has been a member of SLA since 1978. She is currently the Director of Law Library Services in the Law Library of the Library of Congress where she provides leadership for the provision of a wide range of information and collection services for the U.S. Congress, the Courts, the Executive Branch agencies and the public. Since coming to the Law Library, Scheeder instituted a number of new programs including the digital reference "Ask a Librarian" service.
Previously, she had served for 30 years in the Congressional Research Service (CRS) in increasingly responsible positions climaxing in being appointed the Deputy Assistant Director of the Information Research Division. As a manager, she played a role in redefining the role of library professionals in CRS and assisted in raising the status of library professionals to that of other CRS professional staff.
Scheeder has been a consultant to parliamentary research libraries and organizations and has traveled to Japan, Brazil, Australia, and Canada to give keynote addresses, lectures and workshops at the request of the parliamentary library or the association of parliamentary libraries. She is a member of the IFLA Standing Committee on Parliamentary Libraries and Research Organizations (1997 to present). She has been a presenter at Computers in Libraries, Internet Librarian, Internet Librarian International, On-Line, and KM-World Conferences.
Scheeder has worked hard on behalf of the association and continues to serve SLA with distinction. She served for three years on the board of directors as Treasurer (1994-1997) and was chair of the Finance Committee. She has also been a member of the Strategic Planning and Office Operations Committees. She was subsequently elected to the presidency of the association where she provided strong leadership during her presidential year from 2000 to 2001. She has served as chair of the Awards and Honors Committee (2001-2003) and has served as a member on numerous committees and as a proctor for several groups.
Donna has been active and chaired (1993-1994) the News Division of SLA. She has also been active in the Leadership and Management Division where she served as government relations chair (1998-1999). For the Washington DC Chapter (DC/SLA), she has served as chair of the Government Relations Committee (1997-1998), chair of the Hospitality Committee (1981-1982; 1985-1987), and chair of the Scholarship Benefit Committee (1983), as well as on the chapter's board of directors as recording secretary (1983-1985) and as president (1988-1989)
Her contributions over the course of her career have been recognized by SLA, which named Scheeder an SLA Fellow (1998) and the John Cotton Dana Award recipient (2004). She received the Ralph Shoemaker Award (1994) and the Agnes Henebry Roll of Honor (1997) from the News Division and DC/SLA awarded her the Board of Directors Award in 1989.
 |
Barbara Semonche
Barbara Semonche has been a member of SLA for 32 years, first joining the association in 1977. In June 2009, she retired from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) School of Journalism and Mass Communication's Park Library, where she held the position of director for nearly 20 years.
After graduating from the UNC-CH School of Library Science 1976, Semonche discovered that her local newspaper, The Herald-Sun, did not have a library. So she contacted the managing editor and offered to start one, and the first Herald-Sun Newspaper Library opened on September 29th, that same year.
During her 13 years as the Herald-Sun library director, Semonche built a staff to cope with the tasks of managing clip and photo files as well as providing reference and research services to the entire Herald-Sun company. With her staff's aid, Semonche launched a clipping file microfiche project as well as a computerized newspaper indexing program with software developed in collaboration with IBM. Both the microfiche and the index were sold to subscribers in North Carolina libraries. During this period, Semonche served as the North Carolina Chapter of SLA (NC/SLA) president (1983-1984) and the News Division chair (1993-1994).
After a decade managing a newspaper library, Semonche discovered that there had never been an official definition or job title for what she and hundreds of other news librarians had been doing for over a half century. The U.S. Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) had no classification for news librarians. Enlisting the aid of the U.S. Department of Labor and several of its field officers, Semonche with a few other news librarians throughout the United States, prepared a draft document detailing what news librarians did and what job titles were appropriate. It was tested, accepted and entered into the DOT by 1991.
In 1990 Semonche was recruited by the dean of the UNC-CH School of Journalism and Mass Communication to launch the Park Library as its director. In addition to managing the library's print and electronic resources, she was a frequent class instructor and research coach for students, faculty and international media scholars. During her tenure Semonche wrote several articles on news librarianship and was the editor of the 1993 book titled, News Media Libraries: A Management Handbook.
In 1993 Semonche acquired her first email address and almost immediately launched a new electronic discussion list for SLA's News Division called NewsLib and was hosted on the UNC campus servers. By the time she relinquished her responsibility as list administrator in 2006, NewsLib subscribers, a mix of news librarians, media researchers, reporters, journalism educators, students, and vendors, numbered nearly 1,200 people representing 30 countries. From 2000 to 2008 she took on the responsibility of creating and managing the SLA Fellows discussion list and Web site.
In 1996 Semonche was awarded SLA /Freedom Forum Fellowship to travel to Romania and Poland to offer Internet searching and Web content development to librarians in those countries. Other international speaking invitations brought Semonche to the Denmark, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, and the U.K. In 2004, she was selected to be one of seven Knight Journalism Fellows to join a group of nearly 50 international librarians attending the global seminar, Librarians in the 21 Century, in Salzburg, Austria.
During her years as a SLA member, Semonche served on eight association-level committees and task forces. But it was her service with SLA's Student Academic Relations Committee (SARC) that brought her the most satisfaction. A meeting with former SLA president, Rose Vormelker, early in Semonche's career alerted her to the value of mentoring students and mid-career professionals.
Toward the end of her career, Semonche was honored as a Distinguished Alumna by her colleagues at the UNC-CH School of Information and Library Science. NC/SLA presented Semonche with the chapter's Meritorious Achievement Award for Distinguished Service, SLA's News Division presented Semonche with the Joseph F. Kwapil Award for Meritorious Contributions to the Profession, the Agnes Henebry Award of Honor, and the David Rhydwen Award for Outstanding Scholarly Contributions to the Field of News Librarianship. Semonche was named an SLA Fellow (1995) and later presented her with the Rose Vormelker Mentoring Award (2000) and the John Cotton Dana Award (2004)
RSS
Feedback form
