WiLS Director (2011-2020) Stef Morrill Presented WLA Special Services Award
We are so proud.
WiLS former Executive Director Stef Morrill will receive the WLA 2020 Special Services Award and be recognized during the WLA Annual Conference, held virtually on Wednesday, November 11th. Join the festivities to celebrate Stef and others at the WLA Awards Ceremony from 3:00 – 5:00 pm.
Stef has served Wisconsin libraries as a collaborative and compassionate leader for more than twenty years. Beginning her Wisconsin career at the Wisconsin Reference & Loan Library, Stef served as New Technologies Coordinator and later as Associate Director for South Central Library System. In 2011, she took the helm as WiLS’ Executive Director and gracefully guided our small non-profit through a comprehensive and sometimes difficult reorganization. Guided by her strong professional ethics, a commitment to transparency and kindness, and an uncanny business sense, we’ve doubled in staff in only the seven intervening years and provided valuable services to hundreds of Wisconsin libraries.
Stef’s influence on the Wisconsin library community is strong and each person we contacted to provide a letter of support for the award nomination was enthusiastic about doing so.
In recalling Stef’s work in the early days of the Wisconsin Public Library Consortium, Winding Rivers Library System Director Kristen Anderson remembers “Stef pushing the group to innovate, sharing research and new ideas, encouraging the group to think big, and yet always being a careful, open-minded and respectful listener.”
On Stef’s stint as WLA Annual Conference Committee Co-Chair in 2013, UW-Green Bay’s Assistant Vice Chancellor for Information Technology and Libraries Paula Ganyard recalls, “Besides her energy, passion, and creativity, Stef has an amazing ability to see people’s strengths, which allowed her to put everyone into the right positions. There was something of interest every moment of the conference, from the start of the pre‐conferences to the end of the president’s luncheon.” Ganyard remembers “the energy and excitement that conference goers took back to their libraries. The return on the investment for that conference will never truly be known, but I do know for certain it was more than just the numbers on a spreadsheet showed, and it was due to Stef’s leadership.”
WiLS current Executive Director, Jennifer Chamberlain, recognizes the legacy that Stef cultivated. “WiLS today is an innovative and agile organization in large part due to the strong workplace culture Stef fostered throughout her tenure. Anyone who has worked closely with Stef knows her to be incredibly humble, and she’s undoubtedly going to find ways to divert the spotlight to those she’s worked with throughout her career,” says Chamberlain. “I can attest to the WiLS staff’s tremendous talent and skill, but it was under Stef’s compassionate leadership they created something truly remarkable for Wisconsin libraries.”
Earlier this year, Stef decided to continue her passion for serving others by focusing on her local community, establishing River Valley Commons, a non-profit that aims to increase the well-being of the community of Spring Green and the surrounding region. While it was difficult for us to say goodbye, we are so excited to see what she does with her new organization.
At WiLS, we were fortunate to have benefitted from Stef’s mentorship and friendship and we are delighted to see her service honored by WLA.
Join WiLS for Setting Your Library’s Course with Community Demographics
Earlier in the day during the WLA 1-day Virtual Conference, you can catch WiLS’ Melissa McLimans and Kim Kiesewetter presenting Setting Your Library’s Course with Community Demographics from 10:00 – 11:00 am.
Demographic data provides valuable insights about a community’s past, current, and future needs and can help libraries make critical decisions related to resource allocation, service provision, and even library staffing. Kim and Melissa will cover what demographics are, how you can find them about your community, and how you can use the information to make data-informed decisions for your library.