Tyckoson wins national award

By Jennifer Stapp
University Communications student-intern

Dave Tyckoson, director of Public Services f or the Henry Madden Library, has been named 2005 recipient of the highest national honor granted by the American Library Association to reference librarians.

Tyckoson was selected as 2005 recipient of the Isadore Gilbert Mudge-R.R. Bowker Award presented by the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA). The Mudge-Bowker Award is given to an individual who has made a distinguished contribution to reference librarianship. The recognition includes a $5,000 award which will be presented in June at the American Library Association Annual Conference in Chicago.

 Tyckoson’s 25 years of work in reference services include the areas of teaching, training, publication and programming. He joined the Fresno State faculty in 1997 as head of library reference and was named director of public services in 2002.

He has written extensively about reference service and has been widely published in library journals. His article, “What’s Right With Reference” in the May 1999 issue of American Libraries, the membership magazine of the ALA, sparked debate among library professionals on the models for and value of reference service.

In fall 2004, Tyckoson developed and taught the Reference and User Services Association’s first online continuing education course, based on a course he developed for a Fresno State continuing education program for librarians in Korea.

Tyckoson has a bachelor’s degree in physics and master’s degree in library science, both from the University of Illinois. Before coming to Fresno State, he held librarian positions at SUNY – Albany, Iowa State University and Miami ( Ohio) University.

He is a member of the Fresno Area Library Council and the California Library Association, and is a life member of the ALA.