ALA International Awards Presentation
January 14th, 2005 by gabe
At 5:47pm or so I attended a celebration of, in the words of Dr. Seoud M. Matta, “two young men who came to America and stayed,” Drs. Nasser Sharify and Norman Horrocks. Sharify was given the John Ames Humphry/OCLC/Forest Press Award and Horrocks the International Kaula Gold Medal and Citation. The event was jovial.
Introductions were made by the charming Dr. Matta. Michael Dowling, the Director of the ALA International Relations Office, then welcomed them, saying that Sharify would have received his award at Orlando last summer, but “he had to get his new knee.”
Frederick C. Lynden presented the award to Sharify. He listed a few of Sharify’s accomplishments, including his central role in the creation of the first library school in Morocco in 1973, his work in Iran, and his Columbia University doctoral thesis, later published by the ALA, which described a system for the transliteration of Persian text to a Roman alphabet. He also mentioned Sharify’s longstanding contribution to Pratt Institute, for which he was named Dean Emeritus.
Sharify’s son next took the lectern and said, “I hate to be effusive or gushy, but I must confess that no one is more proud of this man than my sister.” He then told us his father had prepared a few remarks about himself for his son to make. He pulled a page out of his jacket and read aloud, “I am an inspiration to everyone who has ever met me.” After the laughter died down, he took a more serious tone, thanking his father for his encouragement and love. He finished with a few words by Pablo Neruda: “To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life.”
Nasser Sharify began his acceptance speech by asking whether it was he who follows Norman Horrocks around, or Horrocks who follows him. His confusion stemmed from the fact that Horrocks received the Humphry Award, the award Sharify would be receiving tonight, four years ago. Likewise, Sharify received the Kaula Gold Medal twenty years ago.
He next mentioned some of Horrocks’s achievements, cutting himself off to make an aside to Horrocks:
“Correct me if I’m wrong.”
Horrocks replied, “Oh, when I get up to speak I will.”
After a bit more banter Sharify presented the medal to Horrocks, who rose to a standing ovation from the crowd. When he finally spoke, he admitted, “I didn’t know this was going to be a roast,” and added, “That’s why I never bring my wife and kids to these events.” His speech intertwined four aspects: his great belief in public libraries, his support of library associations, his experience in library education, and his participation in the international dimension of libraries.
He spoke of how proud he is to be a member of the Canadian Public Library Association. He said he owed a debt to public libraries, especially the Manchester Public Library for the affect it had on his life. He told a short history of the Manchester Public, including the trip the trustees took to Boston in 1908 to study the Boston Public Library.
He went on to describe his attendance of library school in Manchester on the British equivalent of the GI Bill, after which he went to Cypress to set up a public library there. That library lasted until the people demonstrating against the government “got a little excited” and broke in and burned the building down. He moved on to Egypt, but was injured in some kind of bombing. He fled to Australia, where he worked for a while and eventually got into library school education. When he started to teach, however, he felt out of date, so he decided he would go to the US and get his MLS. He contacted his former dean, who he thought was at the University of Illinois. It turned out he had transfered to Pittsburgh, so Horrocks went there.
“How lucky I was not to land in Urbana-Champaign,” he said, drawing laughter from the crowd.
“Anyone here from Illinois?” he continued.
A few hands went up, and he sighed, “Oh, there goes my international relations.”
He quoted a famous figure involved in Carnegie’s great library-funding project, whose name I didn’t catch, who, after touring Australia’s libraries in the early twentieth century, wrote, “If you want to come away with a good impression of public libraries in Queensland don’t make the mistake of going into one.”
On a more serious note, he expressed his approval of the Nova Scotia Library Association’s recent establishment of the Norman Horrocks Leadership Award, then touched on some of his intertwining themes once again. About public libraries, he said he would expand on some of his comments tonight in an article on the future directions public libraries could take. About library associations, he said while he acknowledges the need for specialization that boutique organizations provide, he thinks that when we don’t all come together under the ALA we lose some transfer of information from people who talk about things you’ve never heard of. He cited as an example “chat reference,” a term he was introduced to at last summer’s conference. About the international dimension, he said that while there are similarities between any two libraries, we must acknowledge the differences. He sees, for example, a great difference between state libraries in Australia and the United States.
He finished with the Biblical quote after which his talk was titled: “Wisdom is the Principal Thing; therefore get wisdom, and with all thy getting get understanding.”
He said before the presentation Sharify asked him, “What does that mean?”
Horrocks answered, “Wisdom, in the Hebrew of the time, was know-how, the learning of how things work. In learning how things work we gain wisdom.”
He paused, then added, “My hope is to share with you the noble work in which we’re all involved.”
Tags: ALAMidwinter2005, conferences
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