SLA FELLOWS: 2007

Pictured from left: Wei Wei, Patricia Cia, Terri Brooks, Toby Pearlstein
[Note: Not pictured is Gail Stahl.]
Photo by Jim Tchobanoff

FIVE DESERVING INFORMATION PROFESSIONALS RECOGNIZED BY SPECIAL LIBRARIES ASSOCIATION FOR SERVICE TO THE PROFESSION
SLA Fellowship is Granted to Distinguish Members Who Have Contributed to the Association

Alexandria, Virginia, USA, 21 June 2007 -- During its Annual Conference in Denver, Special Libraries Association (SLA) announced all of its 2007 Award Recipients including Terri Brooks, Patricia Cia, Toby Pearlstein, Gail Stahl, and Wei Wei as the 2007 Class of SLA Fellows.

"The SLA Fellows are an unrivaled group of intelligent and dedicated professionals. These five SLA members are certainly deserving of this honor and based off their track records, I am confidant that they will continue to be important assets to this organization and the profession," said SLA Chief Executive Officer Janice R. Lachance. "I congratulate them and thank them for their service to SLA thus far, and I look forward to seeing what they do with their talent and drive into the next leg of their SLA journey."

The honor of Fellow of SLA is given to an SLA member to recognize leadership in their career as an information professional. Fellowship in SLA is bestowed on mid-career professionals in recognition of past, present and future service to the Association and the profession. The designation is presented to active professionals who are not presently serving on the Board of Directors.

The 2007 Class of SLA Fellows:

Terri Brooks
Since 1996, Brooks has been director, library services, at the Investment Company Institute (ICI) in Washington, D.C. Before that, she managed the corporate library for Furash & Company and held positions in three other organizational libraries.

An SLA member since 1979, Brooks is part of the Washington D.C. Chapter, the Business and Finance Division, the Information Technology Division, and the Leadership and Management Division. She has held numerous leadership positions, including chair of the Bylaws Committee and Diversity Leadership Development Program Committee and member of the Baltimore Conference Program Planning Committee, the Recognition Task Force, the Association Information Services Caucus and the Task Force on Membership. She currently serves on the Executive Board of the Business and Finance Division.

She received a bachelor of arts from Idaho State University and a master of librarianship degree from the University of Washington, Seattle.

Patricia Cia
An SLA member since 1993, Cia is a technical services librarian, at Langara College, in Vancouver. She most recently served on the SLA Board of Directors from 2004 to 2006 as chapter cabinet chair-elect and chair.

Before that, she played an instrumental role in the virtualization of the SLA's Western Canada Chapter. Recognizing that its members were widely dispersed, the chapter in 1997 volunteered to be SLA's "virtual chapter." Cia was communications chair, a position that included serving as webmaster, bulletin editor, and list owner--which made her responsible for putting the structure of the virtual chapter into effect. Under her editorial guidance, the "Wired West" became the first chapter bulletin to go solely electronic.

Cia also served as treasurer and president of the Western Canada Chapter and has been a member of several Association committees and task forces including the Code of Accountability Task Force and the SLA Centennial Commission.

Cia previously worked for Teck Cominco as corporate librarian/webmaster and worked in two other organizational libraries. She has a bachelor's degree from the University of Victoria and a master's degree in library science from the University of British Columbia.

Toby Pearlstein
Toby Pearlstein, Director, Global Information Services for Bain & Company, joined SLA in 1977.
She is a Past Chair of the Business and Finance Division and headed the unit's professional development activities for two terms. She chaired the Transportation Division, served as chair and member of SLA's Professional Development Committee, was a grant reviewer on SLA's Research Committee and a member of the Association's Executive Director Search Committee in 2001.

Through her talks on various conference programs, Pearlstein has contributed to the professional development of her colleagues, most notably in the areas of running a global operation, vendor/licensing negotiations, and knowledge management. She has spoken frequently at SLA events, ranging from Boston Chapter panels to Annual Conferences. She is also a frequent speaker at professional meetings such as ASIST and Internet Librarian.

She has a bachelor's in history from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, a master's in history from the University of New Hampshire, and a master's and PhD in library science from the Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science.

Gail Stahl
Gail Stahl, an SLA member since 1982, is megatrends lead researcher for the Strategy Practice, and pulp and paper specialist for the Boston Consulting Group. She has been a volunteer leader with SLA for nearly two decades.

She served the Georgia SLA Chapter as president, treasurer, bulletin editor, scholarship awards chair, electronic communications chair, nominating committee (twice), and fundraising chair. She guided the move to revise the chapter's governing documents and reorganize the chapter to operate more effectively. She has served at the division level as chair of the Leadership Management Division (LMD), and has held numerous LMD posts, including conference program planner.

At the regional level, Stahl was instrumental in the success of the first South Atlantic Regional Conference. As a member of the finance committee, she raised thousands of dollars for the conference. Not only were planners able to cover expenses, they were also able to return money to the participating chapters to be used as seed money for the next conference.

She served on the SLA Recognition Task Force, the LA 2001 annual conference committee, and is treasurer of the Competitive Intelligence Division. She has a bachelor's degree in Spanish with a minor in library education from the University of Georgia and a master's in librarianship from Emory University.

Wei Wei
Wei Wei is Computer Science/Computer Engineering and Technology & Information Management Librarian in the Science and Engineering Library at the University of California, Santa Cruz. An SLA member since 1987, she has been an active member of the Science and Technology Division, serving as Chair as well as holding various committee assignments. She was the SLA Diversity Leadership Development Program Committee co-chair and has been chair of the SLA Committee on Association Governance. She also served on committees in Diversity Leadership, International Relations, Conference Paper, SLA Conference Structure and SLA Committee on Committees.

Wei Wei is the editor of Scholarly Communication in Science & Engineering Research in Higher Education and one of the editors of Leadership and Management Principles in Libraries in Developing Countries published in 2004 by Haworth Press. She is a member of the editorial board of Science and Technical Libraries (peer-reviewed journal) and has edited two themed issues of the journal.

Wei has a master's degree in American Literature from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln and a master's in information and library studies from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.