Elsevier awards Portland State University the Karen Hunter Memorial Award

Elsevier, a global leader in research publishing and information analytics, announced on April 13, 2021, that Portland State University as the winner of the 3^rd Annual Karen Hunter Memorial Award. The Karen Hunter award recognizes and encourages collaborations that advance information dissemination via technology. Awardees receive $5000 and support to attend 2021 ACRL Virtual Conference, where an award reception will be hosted.

Portland State University library team demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to the promotion and publication of openly licensed textbooks in order to save students money, increase student retention rates, and improve student learning through the development of the PDXOpen initiative. PDXOpen has provided a tremendous impact on student learning and empowering instructors to engage in new pedagogical models to focus on increasing student success and engagement.

Karen Bjork, Head of Digital Initiatives & Scholarly Publishing said, “Our open access textbook publishing initiative, PDXOpen provides the essential service of saving students money while increasing the visibility of our University scholars.  PDXOpen supports another core PSU Library value — student success — and we are able to develop partnerships across campus with faculty, students and others who share these goals.”

The Portland State University library team involved in the creation and success of the PDXOpen initiative are Karen Bjork;  Amy Stanforth, Student Success Librarian; Stephanie Doig, Library Office Manager; and Tammy Klupar, Library Office Coordinator.

Gwen Evans, Vice President of Global Library Relations, Elsevier said, “Libraries and publishers have productively worked together to offer and implement e-resources, technology, and services. PDXOpen is an exemplary example of how libraries are experimenting and innovating by finding new ways to deliver content and help faculty facilitate remote instruction. The Karen Hunter Memorial Award is one way for us to continue to celebrate and bring visibility to these important library achievements."

The Elsevier Karen Hunter Memorial Award was established in 2018 to honor Karen’s legacy. In her four decades at Elsevier, Karen led groundbreaking initiatives in scholarly communications in partnership with the research community. You can read more about Karen and her contributions here.