Jan Chindlund, library director of Columbia College Chicago, is the 2010 recipient of the SLA Rose L. Vormelker Award. Chindlund is being honored for mentoring, inspiring, and guiding information professionals through her work at Columbia College Chicago, McDonald’s Corporation, and the SLA Illinois Chapter and the SLA Business & Finance (B&F) Division.
She was
presented with her award on June 13 during the opening general session of the
SLA Annual Conference & INFO-EXPO in
The Vormelker Award is presented to an SLA member for exceptional service to the profession through education and mentoring of students and working professionals. The SLA Awards Committee cited Chindlund’s dedication to mentoring and inspiring SLA members, as well as her volunteer work at all levels of the association during more than 23 years of membership.
“Jan Chindlund represents the finest model of a mentor. Her natural ability to inspire excellence in others reinforces SLA’s long-lasting traditions of stewardship and service to the profession,” said 2010 SLA President Anne Caputo. “She is extremely deserving of this award, and I am so pleased that we are honoring her deep caring and dedication to the future of the information and library profession.”
Prior to joining Columbia College Chicago in 2007, Chindlund managed two special libraries in the Chicago metro area, the McDonald’s Corporation Global Business & Consumer Insight Information Center and the Research Library of Duff & Phelps. She has professionally mentored numerous library practicum students from Dominican University and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and many librarians seeking new directions in their professional careers. She has also been a guest lecturer at Dominican University GSLIS.
“Jan lives the values of the library profession in helping others at all levels. She extends an extra effort to assist everyone from colleagues to clients. But most notably she ‘pays it forward’ by mentoring countless people who want to advance their careers as information and knowledge services professionals,” said SLA Illinois Chapter President Dianna Wiggins. “We’ve got six degrees of Jan Chindlund here in Chicago! She has touched the lives and careers, or in some way influenced or tried to help just about every information professional walking around in our state and especially in our city.”
Chindlund has been actively involved in SLA at the chapter, division, and association levels since 1987. She served as SLA Illinois Chapter president (2003-2004) and as B&F secretary (1994-1996) and director (1998-2000). During her term on the B&F Board of Directors, she worked to develop the B&F Mentoring Initiative. She also served on the Nominating Committee as chair (2010), on the President’s Task Force on Professional Value (2005-2006), and the Annual Conference Advisory Council (2005 and 2011). She received the Dow Jones Leadership Award in 2000 and was named an SLA Fellow in 2006.
“For me, it is important to help other librarians. Generous time has been spent on me; contacts have been shared as well as insight and perspective. I feel that if I have anything to share with others, I’d like to do that,” said Chindlund. “Receiving this award is a great honor, and I’m humbled to accept it as a representative of all information professionals who have this sharing capacity and pass it on from generation to generation. We are really standing on the shoulders of those who have come before us, and I’m just one of those in that long chain.”
Chindlund holds a Master of Library and Information Science from Dominican University, a Master of Business Administration from Benedictine University, and a bachelor’s degree in education from Wheaton College.
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