The winner of the inaugural Liesbeth Hoedemaeker-Cohen Fund for IAML Congress Travel Award

The Liesbeth Hoedemaeker-Cohen Fund for IAML Congress Travel, established by the Cohen family in Liesbeth’s honor, is intended to help support travel to attend the annual congress of the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres.

The Award Committee received almost 30 applications in this, its inaugural year. All documents have been thoroughly reviewed with the goal of selecting the strongest candidate most closely aligned with the Award criteria.

The Committee has now completed its work, and we are very pleased to announce that the winner of the very first Liesbeth Hoedemaeker-Cohen Fund for IAML Congress Travel Award is Katherine J. Penner from Canada.

Katherine is currently employed as the Acting Head of the Eckhardt-Gramatté Music Library at the University of Manitoba. She holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Manitoba, and an MLIS from the University of Western Ontario. Katherine is also an active member of the Canadian Branch of IAML (CAML), serving as a Secretary and Collection Committee member.

The Awards Committee perceived Katherine’s professional and enthusiastic approach to information access and collection development, and her dedication to developing an information literacy/research skills curriculum for undergraduate music students. Her application and a letter of reference have asserted that she wishes to pursue music librarianship as a career. After her first participation in the IAML Congress in Riga, she wants to continue cooperation with the IAML’s Service and Training Section, especially in the area of information literacy education.

I am sure that IAML members will join me in congratulating Katherine on receiving this prestigious award and wishing her every success in her future work with IAML.

On behalf of the Awards Committee I would like to thank all candidates for their interest and their efforts in preparing applications. It was a very strong pool of applicants.

Last but not least, I would like to express a sincere thanks to Liesbeth Hoedemaeker-Cohen and H. Robert Cohen for their generosity in establishing this important award.

Stanisław Hrabia
The Liesbeth Hoedemaeker-Cohen Fund for IAML Congress Travel Awards Committee, Chair