Elizabeth (Liz) O'Keefe

To give one a sense of the impact Elizabeth (Liz) O'Keefe has had on the cataloging profession throughout her career, here's an excerpt from the press release that went out when she won ARLIS/NA's Distinguished Service Award:

"Much of her work with the development of metadata standards was accomplished through her long service on ARLIS/NA's Cataloging Advisory Committee (CAC) in many roles, including member, Chair, liaison to ALA's Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (CC:DA), and liaison to the Machine Readable Bibliographic Information Committee (MARBI). Her advocacy in these and other forums helped persuade key players in the development of Resource Description and Access (RDA) that the new cataloging standard must be flexible enough to support the description of non-traditional library resources, including art and cultural works. Liz also made substantive contributions to other specialist standards, such as the Visual Resources Association’s Cataloging Cultural Objects, and the standards for the description of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, modern manuscripts, and graphics developed by the Rare Books & Manuscripts Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries. To all these endeavors she brought exceptional enthusiasm, unparalleled breadth and depth of knowledge, and formidable communication skills, leavened with a sly wit that could defuse the most contentious debate."

Here’s that press release in full: https://assets.noviams.com/novi-file-uploads/arlisna/pdfs-and-documents/Press_Releases/2017/2016DSA_Award-546bc872.pdf 

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