Graduate Professor and Coordinator Mona Kerby named a national service award recipient for her contribution to school librarianship

Mona Kerby, the L. Stanley Bowlsbey Endowed Chair at McDaniel College, has been named the recipient of the 2020 American Association of School Librarians’ Distinguished Service Award. Kerby coordinates the School Librarianship program and also serves as coordinator of McDaniel College’s Writing for Children and Young Adults and Learning Technologies Specialist certificate programs.

The Distinguished Service Award recognizes an individual member of the library profession who has, over a significant period of time, made an outstanding national contribution to school librarianship and school library development, according to the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) website.

Kerby has dedicated more than two decades in higher education at McDaniel College, starting as an assistant professor in 1994. In 1993, she was named a National Endowment for the Humanities Teacher Scholar. Prior to McDaniel, she spent 20 years as a school librarian and kindergarten teacher at Arlington Independent School District in Arlington, Texas. She also served as an adjunct lecturer for five years at Texas Woman’s University, teaching children’s literature and young adult literature. Since 1987, Kerby has been a writer of books for children, young adults and school librarians.

"I’m honored to receive this award because it means that in a small way, I join the school library leaders who’ve helped me—unknowingly—over my career,” Kerby said. “My mission is to help librarians develop and use quality collections that enrich students' love of reading and learning—forever."

She holds a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and Spanish from Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, Texas, and obtained a master’s degree in Counseling Education from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. She continued her education at Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas, obtaining a master’s degree in Library Science and a Ph.D. in Library Science. She currently resides in Westminster, Md.