Congratulations, Yvonne, and thank you for your work!

University Libraries is pleased to announce the 2025 Lois Olsrud Library Faculty Excellence Award recipient is Instructional Design and eLearning Lead, Yvonne Mery.

Named after Lois Olsrud, a librarian who worked at the University of Arizona Libraries from 1966 to 1996, this annual award honors a library faculty member who demonstrates excellence in providing service to and collaborating with our campus community. Yvonne was nominated by library faculty and campus colleagues.

In Yvonne’s nomination packet, a library faculty colleague wrote, "As our instructional design librarian, Yvonne has collaborated with colleagues in nearly every library department. She worked with the Health Sciences Library (HSL) to create tutorials in support of College of Medicine students, with Special Collections to create primary source literacy tutorials for undergraduates, with Research Engagement on copyright and data management tutorials, and with countless other liaison librarians needing specific disciplinary learning content.”

Another campus faculty member shared, "Yvonne makes it her mission to understand how the library can best serve humanities scholars, who remain uniquely connected to and reliant upon books (old and new, paper and digital), information collection, and the written word. I have been continually impressed by Yvonne’s genuine dedication and caring, collaborative spirit. Through her sustained excellence in service to and collaboration with myself, as well as the students and faculty in my department, Yvonne has earned our profound respect and deepest appreciation." 

This year's Library Faculty Assembly Award Committee members were Christine Hertzel (co-chair), Dana Lema (co-chair), and Robin Vickery.

Olsrud was a humanities librarian at University Libraries who was dedicated, caring, and highly respected by her libraries colleagues and the University of Arizona faculty and students with whom she worked. After a long and distinguished career, Olsrud retired in 1996 and established the Lois Olsrud Endowment, which supports the award, in 2010. She passed away June 2, 2021. More about Lois and past honorees