Marcus Banks receiving the Ysabel Bertolucci’s Professional Excellence Award

It’s getting to be that time of year when we turn our clocks back and try to get as much done during the daylight hours. It’s also the time of year to gather with family and friends, including fellow medical librarians. We had our second business meeting at Kaiser in Oakland on September 30th . Thank you to Raquel Abad and Suzanne Beattie for arranging the location. We had much to discuss, but the main event was the presentation of the Ysabel Bertolucci Professional Excellence Award. Formerly known as the Professional Recognition Award, the award was recently renamed in honor of the late Ysabel Bertolucci. Ysabel was a longtime member and leader of NCNMLG, as well as an advocate of medical librarianship.
As stated in the NCNMLG Policy Manual:
“This award recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to NCNMLG and health sciences librarianship.” (pg 31 NCNMLG Policy Manual).
This year’s recipient of the Ysabel Bertolucci Professional Excellence Award is Marcus Banks. Marcus has been a medical librarian for 11 years and is currently the Director of Library, Academic, and Instruction Innovation at Samuel Merritt University. He has been a member of NCNMLG for 6 years serving as president-elect and president. His contributions to health librarianship go beyond his work with NCNMLG. He has presented papers at conferences relevant to the profession and continues to expand the role of librarians. He recently presented a paper on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as part of Open Access Week at San Jose State University. Marcus’s other pursuits include a blog and working on jigsaw puzzles. Please join me in congratulating Marcus on a well deserved recognition!