1999 Award Recipient Jackie Bastille

Sydney Fingold presented this year's Mahslin Hall of Fame award to Jacqueline Bastille:

Mahslin, our association of professionals, has been dedicated to providing and facilitating access to health information resources and services for over twenty years. In establishing its "Hall of Fame" last year, Mahslin has sought to recognize the performance and leadership of members and supporters of the health sciences library community.

This year we have unanimously chosen one outstanding candidate, JACQUELINE BASTILLE, whose library,

under her direction, has become widely recognized as one of the best hospital libraries in the country. In fact, Jackie has just been chosen to receive the 1999 Medical Library Association Award for Excellence and Achievement in Hospital Librarianship.

Jackie came to the Treadwell Library at Massachusetts General Hospital twenty-five years ago and transformed a small, poorly lit reading room with bound journal volumes stacked on the floor, into a modern 1400 square foot library with computers on every floor. She had imagination, vision, and a willingness to take risks. She jumped at the opportunity to take advantage of new technologies and in the early 1980's, experimented with an online catalog, instituted and automated serials check-in system and applied for and received an IAIMS grant.

Throughout Jackie's long career she has been actively engaged in professional library activities. Her MLA interests started as early as 1963 when she served as the Chair of the Philadelphia Regional Chapter. She spent a good part of her career engaged in library research, both practical and then formal when she became Chair of the MLA Research Section. Jackie also served on the National Program Committee and the MLA Board of Directors for three years. In 1991, she mad a major commitment and became President of the Medical Library Association. In her role as president, she made it her mission to address the issues of compensation and professional authority for librarians. Then, in 1996, MLA welcomed Jackie as a Fellow and recognized "her outstanding and sustained contribution to the field and the purposes of the Medical Library Association."

Jackie has shared her extensive knowledge while teaching MLA courses and Medical Librarianship at Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science. She has always been willing to share this knowledge and experience with her colleagues, too, and Mahslin was no exception. Jackie has remained active and visible within our organization, lending support and counsel to many of our initiatives. As a true mentor, she always knew how to challenge us in a way that would allow us to reach the right decision. As a role model, there could be none better.

Jackie, as you retire and go off to your new home in Nashua, and to the family who means so much to you, Mahslin is delighted to present you with this certificate in honor of a most distinguished career.

Press Release Submitted to the Boston Globe

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