CLIR Distinguished Service Award

2011 Citation Recipient

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Allan Urbanic

The Committee on Library and Information Resources of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES CLIR) is pleased to award the 2011 Distinguished Service Award to one of our most revered colleagues, Allan Urbanic, University of California, Berkeley.

Allan Urbanic (A.B. Boston College, M.L.S. Simmons College, Ph.D. Brown University) has served as a scholar and librarian in the field of Slavic and East European Studies for over thirty years. He began his tenure at the University of California, Berkeley in 1986, after working for several years in the Slavic Department of Harvard College Library. Allan has been a leader in developing library collections, and an advocate of collaboration in collection development. He has been at the forefront of efforts to document Russian émigré works throughout the world. He has promoted online Slavic resources, and has fostered communication among Slavic librarians nationally and internationally. Allan’s interest in documenting Russian émigré works has been a hallmark of his activity, resulting in outstanding bibliographies on Russian émigré literature and serials that capture successive waves of Russian emigration, and lend valuable access to rare Russian items in the Museum of Russian Culture in San Francisco, the Hoover Institution and the University of California, Berkeley. He has led grant-funded efforts to preserve collections of newspapers published by émigré communities of the Pacific Rim, and has made unique efforts to microfilm rare émigré titles, many of which have been sent to Russian libraries to enhance their collections. Allan’s impact on the field has been tremendous. He has chaired and served on numerous committees within ASEEES and the American Library Association’s Slavic and East European Section. Allan established the Slavlibs listserv, the primary venue for communication among Slavic, East European and Eurasian librarians in the world, and has maintained it for almost twenty years. Known to longstanding colleagues for his good humor and friendliness, Allan has also reached out to newer members of the field, serving as a mentor and a “big brother,” strengthening foundations for future scholarship. Allan’s impact and legacy in the field of Slavic and East European librarianship will endure.