[August 20, 2007]

Champlain College Library's website has been selected as the "College Library Website of the Month" by the College Library Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). In his letter announcing the selection, J. Michael Thompson, chair of the College Library Section's Communications Committee, explains the award this way: "The College Library Section recognizes that a library's Website, in addition to enhancing access to a library’s resources and services, serves in general as a major means of communicating with current and future users."

In their review of the Champlain Library website, the selection committee wrote: "Library Director Janet Cottrell and the staff provide a visually pleasant homepage. The links clearly identify the Library's services and resources to their patrons. The Find sections as well as the Research Advice, Library Services and For Faculty sections illustrate the Library's mission as stated by Cottrell in the latest annual report...." The committee's review goes on to identify elements of the Library website they found particularly helpful, including a link to guidelines for starting a research project and a new link (to be activated this Fall) providing chat-based reference service.

To have our work recognized by our peers is truly an honor. Like all college libraries, we work hard to communicate with students, faculty, and colleagues; this external recognition of our website lets us hope that we have built a site that does indeed communicate some of the wealth of resources and services that our library offers.

Many thanks to everyone in the Library who contributes to and maintains the website, and to our IS colleagues who helped with the original setup. We are planning some great enhancements to the Library website this Fall, so stay tuned!

-Janet Cottrell, Director