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Alumna Receives OCUFA Academic Librarianship Award

Submitted on Tuesday, October 27, 2015

harriet%20sonne%20de%20torrens1Dr. Harriet Sonne de Torrens, an iSchool alumna with a Master of Information Studies (2001), has won the 2014-2015 Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) Academic Librarianship Award.

The recipient of this prestigious award embraces all aspects of academic librarianship, professional practice, scholarship and service, the three areas of responsibilities which comprise the contributions of academic librarians in the university community.

The Visual Resource Librarian at the Department of Visual Studies & UTM Hazel McCallion Academic Learning Centre (HMCALC), Harriet started her academic career by earning a MA  in Art History from U of T and a Ph.D. from the University of Copenhagen (2003). Her doctoral dissertation was awarded the Leonard F. Boyle Dissertation Prize by the Canadian Society of Medievalists in 2004.

Dr. Sonne de Torrens’s expertise ranges across many fields. She is an accomplished librarian, art historian and medievalist. Her numerous talents and skills add a unique depth to her work as an academic librarian that is easily recognizable.

Colleagues Vicki Skeleton, librarian at Centre for Industrial Relations and Shelley Hawrychuk, Associate Librarian and Deputy Chief Librarian at HMALC Library, who submitted Harriet’s nomination, were deeply pleased with the OCUFA’s choice.

“We believe that Harriet best exemplifies the characteristics of an OCUFA award winner…  We received wonderful letters of support from librarians and faculty from across the University of Toronto.” They continued: “We are very proud that Harriet is a member of our library community, and that she represents us well as a librarian, an academic, and as a strong advocate for librarians on the University of Toronto Faculty Association.”

An excerpt taken from Harriet’s nomination letter further serves to illuminate her contributions to librarianship and the admiration of her colleagues.

“Harriet is an exceptional librarian who positively impacts on the University of Toronto and its Libraries through her contributions to the development and management of collections that support teaching and research and the development of resources that improve access to teaching and research materials. She has also played an instrumental role in the promotion of librarians through her work with the University of Toronto Faculty Association and through her contributions to the professional development of colleagues and to the development and support of the profession. As an active member of the University of Toronto Faculty Association Executive she has played a vital role in implementing successful changes to governance at the University.”

Complimenting her work as a librarian, Harriet is also a widely published scholar with numerous papers to her name. In 2011, her paper “Academic Librarianship: A Crisis or an Opportunity,” was published in hPartnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, and more recently, “Academic Librarianship: The Quest for Rights and Recognition at the University of Toronto” in In Solidarity: Academic Librarian Labour Activism and Union Participation in Canada (Library Juice & Litwin Books, 2014) and with M.Kandiuk the chapter “Librarians in a Litigious Age and the Attack on Academic Freedom” vol. 39 Current Issues in Library, Information and Related Fields (Emerald, 2015).She further published several other academic papers with colleagues on Medieval Studies.

As part of her academic scholarship, Harriet has a deep passion for Medieval History. In 2003, she earned a PhD from the University of Copenhagen with a dissertation entitled, “A Liturgical and Ecclesiological Reading of the Representation of the Childhood of Christ on the Medieval Fonts from Scandinavia.” Subsequently, in 2006 she earned a Licentiate in Mediaeval Studies (L.M.S), a post-doctoral thesis awarded with “Magna Cum Laude” from the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies from U of T.

Harriet is also the Co-director of BAPTISTERIA SACRA INDEX: AN ICONOGRAPHICAL INDEX OF BAPTISMAL FONTS with Miguel A. Torrens, an academic librarian at the University of Toronto. Specifically, the BAPTISTERIA SACRA INDEX is an in-progress, iconographical database of baptismal fonts from the early Christian period to the 17th century. Currently it has over 20,000 font records and more than 30,000 digitized images of baptismal fonts. The data takes into account shape, medium, date, style, period, inscription, bibliographical information, iconographic motif, keyword, region and/or country.

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