The Federal Library and Information Network (FEDLINK) has announced the winners of its national awards for federal librarianship. These awards celebrate the innovative ways federal libraries, librarians, and library technicians serve with distinction and meet the information demands of the government, business and scholarly communities, and the American public.

FEDLINK’s members represent the five national libraries — the Library of Congress, National Library of Medicine, National Library of Education, National Agricultural Library, and National Transportation Library — and cabinet-level executive departments, legislative, judicial, independent federal agencies, tribal libraries, and the District of Columbia.

Federal libraries and staff throughout the United States and abroad competed for the awards. FEDLINK recognizes these outstanding individuals and libraries for delivering outstanding service and expertise to the federal library and information community in fiscal year 2025.

2025 Federal Librarian of the Year

Susan Plotner, Chief Librarian, Army University, U.S. Department of the Army, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

Susan Plotner is recognized for demonstrating strong leadership and adaptability in support of the Army University’s mission to train and educate agile and adaptive soldiers, leaders, and the Army Civilian Corps. She successfully migrated the Army University Library System to a new library services platform while navigating the departure of two of her four-member team. The enhanced system streamlined workflows, improved the user experience, and demonstrated the library’s value throughout her organization. Her hard work and technical skills resulted in the migration of 750,000 bibliographic records during fiscal year 2025. Plotner also integrated the Army University Library System’s digital collections into the new library services platform, increasing discoverability, reducing overhead, and improving accessibility for students, staff, and faculty. Plotner’s willingness to adapt and learn new skills ensured all 16 Army libraries maintained uninterrupted access to critical library resources during the year-long transition. She also completed Contracting Officer Representative (COR) training to manage ongoing contracts, assumed library acquisition duties, and inspired her team to embrace new technologies and innovate tailored program solutions.

2025 Federal Library Technician of the Year

Anita Crum, Library Technician, Robert F. Sink Memorial Library, Fort Campbell, Kentucky

Anita Crum is recognized for her high-quality children and family programming, innovative digital marketing, and effective partnership building. As the Children’s and Family Programming Coordinator for Robert F. Sink Memorial Library, she increased program offerings by 31%, with a focus on building early literacy and technology skills. Over the course of fiscal year 2025, she increased program participation by over 8%, serving 14,905 patrons and bringing in 655 new military families. Her in-house digital content strategy attracted new users, reduced costs, and enhanced her responsiveness to community needs. Crum formed partnerships with organizations including the Child & Youth Services and the School Liaison Office to offer collaborative programs that connected and engaged military families to the programming and resources of the library. She created a strong brand for the library, developed marketing materials, and built a social media presence from the ground up. Crum’s commitment to lifelong learning, exemplary customer service, and community engagement solidified Robert F. Sink Memorial Library’s role as a critical resource to the military families at Fort Campbell.

2025 Federal Libraries/Information Centers of the Year

Large library/information center (staff of 11 or more):

Ralph J. Bunche Library, U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C.

The Ralph J. Bunche Library is recognized for extraordinary innovation, adaptability and resilience in addressing organizational change while providing outstanding service to serving 18,000 unique patrons across 175 countries. The library conducted a comprehensive review of 48 information resource contracts in just two days, verifying that each represented a unique, non-duplicative resource, successfully maintaining uninterrupted access to all mission-critical library contracts. Following the Department’s adoption of the Foreign Aid mission, the library executed a rapid, large-scale migration of the U.S. Agency for International Development library’s collection in a single day. The library overhauled its customer relations management system following an artificial intelligence-driven analysis of user requests, restructuring how the library tracks and categorizes service delivery across key policy priorities, enabling more strategic reporting, targeted user surveys, and a clear demonstration of library impact across the Department’s ten strategic focus areas. To meet a growing agency demand for Knowledge Management expertise, the library developed Knowledge@State, a scalable, self-service platform that unifies knowledge management tools and resources across the Department and serves as a proof-of-concept for expanded investment in library digitization and collections infrastructure.

Small library/information center (staff of 10 or fewer):

Marine Corps Base Hawaii Library, Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii

Marine Corps Base Hawaii Library is recognized for its commitment to connecting the active-duty personnel, families, and retirees to the education and resources they need to thrive. Through a combination of outreach efforts, including briefing every new unit command team and visiting every elementary school classroom, the library increased daily visitors by 13% in just one year. This focus on communication extended to social media, where the library’s new reader advisory content generated a 30% increase in engagement. The library expanded library programming for youth, ages 9-17, setting attendance records with programs supporting literacy and developing life skills. Their efforts resulted in a 67% increase in teen program attendance and a 26% increase in overall program attendance. Staff found creative new ways to support the educational and training needs of its active-duty users by incorporating strategic war games into the collection and launching a new DoD SkillBridge program to provide vocational training for transitioning service members interested in pursuing a degree in library science. The library also partnered with the U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Pacific’s Primary Prevention Integrator to create a permanent professional military education collection inside the secure Marine Forces Pacific building.

2025 Project Award

Institutional Repository Revitalization Project, Dudley Knox Library, Monterey, California

The Dudley Knox Library staff are recognized for the success of the Institutional Repository Revitalization Project. Using innovative and emerging technologies, this team of five overhauled the Naval Postgraduate School’s institutional repository, improving discovery, access, and usability of critical defense research. The project included a timeline for more accurate metadata creation for historical records and reduced duplication of records. Newly created templates and standardized metadata processes ensure accurate cataloging and enhanced discoverability for users. Faced with staffing reductions, the team incorporated automation techniques to make workflows more efficient. Their user-friendly submission forms automatically generate work tickets to ingest new content into the archive, increasing the number of tickets by 292% and reducing ticket resolution time by 66.7%. The team also developed a website change-detection application that scans webpages and alerts staff about new and updated content. The team further increased the accessibility of the archive’s records by integrating content directly into their integrated library system’s discovery layer. This allowed them to track metadata changes and identify more than 46,000 updates and 1,200 new records submitted during the project year. This innovative project improved accuracy, reduced processing time, and removed barriers to access, making their vital collections more relevant and usable than ever.

About FEDLINK

The Federal Library and Information Network (FEDLINK) is an organization of federal agencies working together to achieve the optimum use of the resources and facilities of federal libraries and information centers by promoting common services, coordinating and sharing available resources, and providing continuing professional education for federal library and information staff. FEDLINK serves as a forum for the discussion of the policies, programs, procedures, and technologies that affect federal libraries and the information services they provide to their agencies, Congress, the federal courts, and the American people.

About the Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States — and extensive materials from around the world — both on-site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit at loc.gov, access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information at congress.gov and register creative works of authorship at copyright.gov.