Charlene Baldwin Library Star Award Given to Archivist Andy Harman

September 14, 2021

Twice a year, the Leatherby Libraries staff gather to mark the end of a semester, celebrate together, and recognize each other’s dedication and hard work. At each of these gatherings, one or more Leatherby Libraries employees are honored with a Star Award. As of this year, the Star Award has been re-named the Charlene Baldwin Library Star Award, in honor of Dean Baldwin, whose retirement at the end of August marks a transition in her 21+ years of service to Chapman University, and whose generous gift enables the Star Award to continue.

The purpose of the Charlene Baldwin Library Star Awards is to recognize, through nominations, those individuals who have demonstrated excellent contributions or service to the Leatherby Libraries. The program gives librarians and library staff the opportunity to recognize each other and inform management of the exceptional work of individuals.

Nominations may be made for a single, excellent contribution (example: completion of a significant one-time project) or for an individual’s performance over the past two years. The following are examples of criteria that may be considered when making a nomination:

Demonstrating extraordinary support of one’s coworkers
Establishing excellent working relationships within the library, campus, or community
Completing an outstanding special project
Demonstrating creativity and innovation
Providing outstanding service to library patrons
Contributing to a positive work environment

The Spring/Summer 2021 recipient of the Charlene Baldwin Library Star Award is Andy Harman, Archivist for the Center for American War Letters Archives. In nominating Andy for the award, his colleague wrote the following:

I am formally nominating Andy Harman for the Spring 2021 Charlene Baldwin Library Star Award. I would like to honor his amazing contribution to the Leatherby Libraries during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Within the Frank Mt. Pleasant Library of Special Collections and Archives (SC&A), he was the first to come back to campus to work consistently in-person. For several months, Andy was our main in-person point person in the department, helping field our reference requests which required looking into the physical archives or book collections, picking up our mail, and completing urgent assignments for the Center for American War Letters Archives.

I would like to particularly amplify that Andy was one of the first staffers in the department to initiate discussions on what our in-house procedures should be when we finally returned to campus. His prescient knowledge and awareness of COVID-safe procedures contributed greatly to the conversation in the unit. After several weeks of discourse with colleagues and review by library administration, our procedures were approved. Between the surges, Andy was able to apply these principles and actions during his extraordinary facilitations of in-person researchers to Special Collections and Archives. He had to wear Personal Protective Equipment and practice social distancing with the patrons in providing them the primary sources they needed to complete their research objectives.

As we all gradually come back in-person to work, I am thankful that Andy Harman assisted in laying the groundwork for our department to feel as safe as possible in our return.