Labor Archives of Washington Team: Conor Michael Casey, Eulalie Mathieu and Ernie Dornfeld win 2025 John Sessions Memorial Award
“We are deeply honored to accept the 2025 John Sessions Memorial Award from the ALA’s Reference & User Services Association. This recognition reflects our shared commitment to preserving and amplifying the voices of the labor and social justice community. We thank our stakeholders for nominating us and the Sessions Award committee for this incredible honor.
At the Labor Archives of Washington, we are dedicated to making labor history accessible to all. From creating ADA-compliant, multilingual exhibits to leveraging AI and human expertise to transcribe and index nearly 200 oral histories, we strive to connect people with the labor movement’s rich heritage. This award inspires us to continue innovating and expanding our reach.
Thank you for celebrating our work and supporting our efforts to share these vital stories, and to our donors and users for entrusting us with the profound responsibility of preserving and sharing your history.” – Conor Michael Casey, Eulalie Mathieu and Ernie Dornfeld
“The American Library Association’s Reference & User Services Association (RUSA) presents the 2025 John Sessions Memorial Award to the Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections. They are commended for their work in prioritizing accessibility enhancement through the creation of new exhibits as well as migrating legacy exhibits onto the new platform which allows for reading them in multiple languages. Additionally, their leveraging of AI combined with human editors has helped them to scale their transcription and indexing of legacy oral histories and audio collections workflow, captioning nearly 200 interviews. One committee member commented, “The efforts outlined in the Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries’ nomination are both inspiring and reflective of their unwavering dedication to connecting with the labor community.” We applaud their work in bringing this rich heritage of the labor movement to a wider audience.” – Award Committee Statement
The John Sessions Memorial Award, sponsored by the Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO, consists of a certificate and recognizes a library or library system which has made a significant effort to work with the labor community and by doing so has brought recognition to the history and contribution of the labor movement to the development of the United States.
The RUSA Achievement Awards and Grants selection committee was chaired by Celia Ross.