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“Through his pioneering vision and drive for innovation, Dr. James (Jim) Mullins has led the transformation of Purdue University Libraries into a premier, profession leading 21^st century academic and research library,” said Colby Riggs, Hugh C. Atkinson Memorial Award committee chair and project coordinator at the University of California, Irvine. “He is internationally recognized as a risk-taking, creative, and visionary leader in the academic and research library profession with a demonstrated commitment to information literacy, data research services, digital scholarship, scholarly communication, diversity, and innovation and collaboration with the university and library community.

“Dr. Mullins is a passionate believer in information literacy and staunch advocate for its integration into curriculum and research,” continued Riggs. “At Purdue, he was able to establish the W. Wayne Booker Endowed Chair in Information Literacy, a first in the nation.

“It was Dr. Mullins’ initiative that a new building was conceived and designed which embraced the active learning concept,” Riggs added. “The Wilmeth Active Learning Center (WALC), a 164,000 square foot facility is under construction in the center of campus. The space blends teaching spaces, library/information services, formal study spaces, collaborative work areas and informal learning spaces and will be the site of 27 collaborative active learning classrooms and six consolidated engineering and science libraries when it opens in 2017.”

“Dr. Mullins was at the forefront of identifying the need for data management and preservation services, having played a pivotal role in positioning the Libraries to partner with researchers to create a data repository known as the Purdue University Research Repository (PURR). This resulted in the Libraries developing a suite of data services including Data Curation Profiles and consultations for Data Management Plans,” said Riggs. “Additionally, advancing scholarly communication is one of Dr. Mullins’ top priorities. To this end he has created a Libraries Scholarly Publishing Services division, which includes the institutional repository, and strategically combined it with the Purdue University Press, another first in the nation. He has helped foster innovation in publishing as a founding member of the Library Publishing Coalition (LPC), an independent, community-led membership association led by college and university libraries to support the creation, dissemination, and curation of scholarly works.”