Barbara Semonche was recently inducted into the Special Libraries Association Hall of Fame.
She has been a member of SLA for 32 years, first joining the association in 1977. In June 2009, she retired from the UNC Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication, where she served as director of the school's library for nearly 20 years.
After graduating from the UNC School of Library Science in 1976, Semonche discovered that The Herald-Sun did not have a library.
She contacted the managing editor and offered to start one, and the first Herald-Sun library opened Sept. 29 of that year. During her 13 years as The Herald-Sun's library director, Semonche built a staff to provide reference and research services to the entire company and launched a clipping file microfiche project as well as a computerized newspaper indexing program with software developed in collaboration with IBM.
After a decade managing a newspaper library, Semonche found that there was no official definition or job title for what she and hundreds of other news librarians had been doing for over a half century. The U.S. Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) had no classification for news librarians. Semonche prepared a document detailing what news librarians do and which job titles were appropriate. It was tested, accepted and entered into the DOT by 1991.
In 1990, Semonche went to work as the founder and director of the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication's Park Library. In addition to managing the library's print and electronic resources, she was a frequent class instructor and research coach for students, faculty and international media scholars.
In 1993, Semonche launched a new electronic discussion list for SLA's News Division called NewsLib. By the time she relinquished her responsibility as list administrator in 2006, NewsLib subscribers numbered nearly 1,200 people representing 30 countries.
Toward the end of her career, Semonche was honored as a distinguished alumna by her colleagues at the UNC Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science. NC/SLA presented Semonche with the chapter's Meritorious Achievement Award for Distinguished Service; SLA's News Division presented her with the Joseph F. Kwapil Award for Meritorious Contributions to the Profession, the Agnes Henebry Award of Honor and the David Rhydwen Award for Outstanding Scholarly Contributions to the Field of News Librarianship. She was named an SLA Fellow in 1995 and was later presented with the Rose Vormelker Mentoring Award (2000) and the John Cotton Dana Award (2004), SLA's highest honor.
