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K-State Today

July 11, 2018

Trussell wins award for distinguished service to engineering librarianship

Submitted by Sarah McGreer Hoyt

Trussel in awardee's hat

Alice M. Trussell, K-State Libraries engineering librarian, was named the recipient of the 2018 Homer I. Bernhardt Distinguished Service Award.

Established in 1990, the award is bestowed by the Engineering Libraries Division of the American Society for Engineering Education. Each year at the society's annual conference, the division presents the award to recognize work that contributes to the advancement and development of excellence in engineering libraries.

"Alice is an accomplished librarian and exemplary role model for current engineering librarians," her nominator said. "Her dedicated work ethic, collaborative experiences, and deep level of involvement on all levels of the professional librarian's spectrum — local, state, national, international — she is an inspiration to all of us."

Trussell has been an active participant in engineering librarianship within the American Society for Engineering Education and beyond, and she has been extensively involved on committees while maintaining regular activity publishing and presenting.  In addition, Trussell has served the Engineering Libraries Division in multiple ways, including moderating a wide range of conference sessions and serving for a full decade as chair of the awards committee.

The winner of the Homer I. Bernhardt Distinguished Service Award is announced at the annual meeting where he or she is presented with a hat, and the recipient is expected to wear it at the division banquet. As people win the award, they add a hat pin from their institution. Trussell is pictured here on the evening she received this honor.

Trussell has been with K-State Libraries since 1997. She started as a science librarian working with geology and statistics, and was eventually appointed director of the Fiedler Engineering Library, a position she held through 2015 when that branch closed. She is currently K-State's engineering librarian. She has a long history of service at K-State, serving as president of the K-State Libraries faculty and in multiple positions on the university's faculty senate and executive council.

The Engineering Libraries Division's distinguished service award is named in honor of Homer I. Bernhardt. From 1966 until his untimely death in 1982, Bernhardt was head of the Bevier Engineering Library at the University of Pittsburgh.