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| UK Provost Tim Tracy, left, presented the Willis Award to Dr. Doug Boyd |
Dr. Doug Boyd, director of
the Louie
B. Nunn Center for Oral History in the University of
Kentucky Libraries Special Collections Research Center, is the
recipient of the 2015 Paul A. Willis Award for Outstanding Faculty. The award,
given by UK Libraries,
honors the legacy of former director Paul A. Willis by recognizing one member
of the libraries faculty each year. Boyd received the award at the UK Libraries
Spring Gala on May 12.
Since becoming the director of the
Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History in 2008, Doug has overseen the addition
of more than 2,500 new oral history interviews to the Nunn Center’s collection.
He led the team that developed OHMS (the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer),
an innovative tool to enhance access to online oral history. Boyd created an
oral history partnership with the bourbon industry in Kentucky, raising funds
for the Kentucky
Bourbon Tales oral history project, and produced the award-winning
documentary “Quest for the Perfect Bourbon.”
Doug launched SPOKEdb,
the Nunn Center’s online catalog, which garners more than 10,000 page views per
month. He works with WUKY
public radio on the regular feature “Saving
Stories,” and wrote the book Crawfish Bottom: Recovering a Lost Kentucky Community, published by University
Press of Kentucky in 2009. He edited another book, Oral History
and Digital Humanities: Voice, Access, and Engagement, published by
Macmillan in 2014. He is also the author of numerous scholarly articles, and
regularly presents on oral history topics at national and international
conferences.
Under Doug's guidance, the Nunn Center expanded the
project "From
Combat to Kentucky" to include interviews from student veterans
at Eastern Kentucky University, Bluegrass Community and Technical College, and
Northern Kentucky University, in addition to UK. The project inspired a play
that ran off-Broadway as part of the NYC Fringe Festival in 2011, and completed
a statewide tour to state universities in Kentucky. "From Combat to
Kentucky" is now integrated into a veteran transition course that engages
student veterans with archival materials, as well as interviewing each other
about their powerful experiences serving in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and
their transitions back into civilian and student life.
"Dr. Boyd is
recognized internationally as a scholar who excels at collecting,
interpreting and publishing oral histories; he also has the digital expertise
to make oral histories available to researchers in new ways. His work
represents the future of oral history. Further his contribution to UK Libraries
advances our mission to serve the UK community as well as scholars around the
world,” said Dean Terry Birdwhistell.
UK Libraries solicits candidates for the Willis Award each fall.
Any member of the UK Libraries faculty and staff may submit a letter nominating
a member of the faculty for this recognition. The award recipient is selected
based on achievements in their primary assignment, as well as national
leadership, scholarship, teaching, creativity, innovation, and service. The
final determination of the award winner is made by the UK
Libraries National Advisory Board.
Reprinted with permission from UKNow.
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