2002 Award Recipient Eleanor McNutt

For more than 20 years MAHSLIN has been dedicated to providing and facilitating access to health information and resources as well as fostering the professional development of it's members and community. The `Hall of Fame' was established in 1998 to recognize outstanding members of the health science library profession. This year the executive board of Mahslin has chosen two extraordinary librarians for this award; Eleanor McNutt of the Berkshire Medical Center and Barbara Pastan of the Faulkner Hospital.

Eleanor McNutt was born in Philadelphia, educated at Tufts and earned her MLS at SUNY Albany. For fourteen years she was the medical librarian at the Albany Medical Center. In 1986 she became the director of the health sciences library at the Berkshire Medical Center. Eleanor has an uncanny knack for seeing a need, implementing a means to fill that need, and educating her clients in use of those tools. When it was time to re-design the Berkshire Medical Center Health Sciences library it was Eleanor's idea to include a media room where the staff had access to the internet and health databases. She then instituted a consumer health section in the library and promoted that to the general public. She was instrumental in the formation of a Community Health Information Center. Eleanor's latest projects are intranet and internet websites including the library catalogs.

While all of this has been a tremendous benefit to the Berkshire Medical Center and the community of Pittsfield, Eleanor has also made a huge contribution to the health science libraries of Massachusetts. She is the founder and director of the Massachusetts chapter of BHSL - a consortium for free interlibrary loans. BHSL has been in operation for approximately sixteen years and includes about 450 libraries in both region 1 and 8. Just imagine how many dollars this consortium has saved budget strapped libraries statewide!

Besides her obvious love of the profession Eleanor also loves to travel. After the Seattle MLA conference Eleanor took a cruise to Alaska. She had always had an interest in polar bears and was delighted when she was able to view them from the cruise ship. This prompted her most recent trip to Churchill in the Hudson Bay region of Canada. Churchill is known for polar bears.

Eleanor, MAHSLIN is delighted to present you with this certificate in honor of your many achievements.


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