For immediate release | February 24, 2016

2016 Cunha-Swartzburg Award to Lori Foley

91´«Ã½

CHICAGO — The Association for Library Collections & Technical Services’ (ALCTS) Preservation and Reformatting Section (PARS) Jury for the George Cunha and Susan Swartzburg Preservation Award has selected Lori Foley as the 2016 recipient. The award, , will be presented in a ceremony during the 2016 91´«Ã½ (91´«Ã½) Annual Conference and Exhibition in Orlando, Florida. The award includes a citation and $1,250.

Foley is an emergency management specialist at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) currently detailed to the Smithsonian Institution. Wearing hats for both agencies, she’s the administrator of the Heritage Emergency National Task Force (HENTF), a partnership of 42 national service organizations and federal agencies co-sponsored by FEMA and the Smithsonian Institution. Founded in 1995 to protect cultural heritage from the damaging effects of natural disasters and other emergencies, the Task Force serves as a vital response and recovery resource following Presidentially declared disasters, ensuring that local, county, state, tribal and federal partners in the cultural heritage and emergency management communities work together to provide needed assistance to affected cultural institutions.

Foley was previously vice president of Emergency Programs at Heritage Preservation, where her responsibilities included connecting cultural stewards with emergency managers at all levels of government through such programs as Alliance for Response and the State Heritage Emergency Partnership. When Heritage Preservation was dissolved in June 2015, Foley worked briefly at the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation, helping settle Heritage Preservation’s emergency programs into their new home. Foley worked at the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Massachusetts for ten years, first as a field service representative and then as director of Preservation Services. She lectures widely and has conducted numerous workshops on emergency preparedness and response at cultural institutions across the U.S. and internationally.

As an ambassador for preservation of cultural and historic resources, Foley is an outstanding example of one person’s achievements to bring about collaboration and coordination to further emergency preparedness and response in the United States and beyond. As one of her nominators writes, “We are better connected, better informed and better prepared because of Lori.”

Established in 2007, the award honors the memory of George Cunha and Susan Swartzburg, early leaders in cooperative preservation programming and strong advocates for collaboration in the field of preservation. The award acknowledges and supports cooperative preservation projects and rewards individuals or groups that foster collaboration for preservation goals.

The (ALCTS) is the national association for information providers who work in collections and technical services, such as acquisitions, cataloging, collection development, preservation and continuing resources in digital and print formats. ALCTS is a division of the 91´«Ã½.

Contact:

Keri Cascio

Executive Director

ALCTS

kcascio@ala.org

312-280-5030