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Barbie Selby is one of the Bernadine Abbott Hoduski Founders Award winners in 1999. She is currently the Documents Librarian at the Arthur J. Morris Law Library, University of Virginia. The award recognizes documents librarians who have made significant contributions to the field of state, international, local or Federal documents. The award recognizes those whose contributions have benefited not only the individual's institution but also the profession.

Barbie has been selected for this award in recognition of her efforts to promote the visibility of Federal, state and international government information and to improve communication in Virginia among those who work with government information. She has worked with the state's government information newsletter, The Shipping List, (sponsored by the Public Documents Forum of the Virginia Library Association) since 1985, serving as a contributor, columnist and then, Chief Editor from 1993 through 1997.

Her talents in motivating and inspiring others to promote government information led her to initiate two successful efforts to promote documents in Virginia. She proposed that the government information librarians "take charge" of a special issue of the Virginia Library Association's quarterly journal, Virginia Libraries, in 1998, and with her dedication in selling the idea to the journal's editor, outlining the topics, recruiting a team of librarian contributors and serving as the unofficial issue editor, the July/September issue was entitled "Government Documents: Changing with the Times.." When the Virginia Library Association and the Virginia Educational Media Association decided to focus on "home-grown" presentations at their joint 1998 conference, Barbie convinced other documents librarians to participate so that ultimately eight documents related programs were accepted for the conference, two of which Barbie presented.

Barbie has served the Virginia Public Documents Forum as secretary, vice-chair and chair. She has promoted Virginia documents on the national level with her contributions to the Notable State Publications Section of the Journal of Government Information. But her contributions also extend to other areas of documents librarianship; she has made a presentation in 1997 at the Depository Library Conference on her experiences with cataloging government documents; and she gave a presentation in Brussels as a representative of American European Union depository librarians on the ways in which libraries promoted European Union information.

Barbie has contributed significantly to promoting and improving access to government information in the State of Virginia and beyond. And she has inspired and motivated other documents librarians to promote their collections and services in new ways.