Leslie Hurst of the University of Washington Bothell Cascadia College Library received the 2018 UW Distinguished Librarian award.

It’s the first time a librarian from the Bothell campus has won the award, which was established in 2008.

The award recognizes excellence in librarianship, especially as it benefits the academic community through innovative approaches to practice, research, teaching and learning.

Hurst supervises 13 librarians who routinely work with faculty to conduct information literacy workshops. They specifically teach new students how to use the library and generally how to conduct valid research. In the wider view, they teach how to recognize what is true and what is not.

“Evaluating information is something we hit hard in a lot of classes,” Hurst said in a press release. “It boils down to thinking critically. Don’t just consume anything and everything. Pause a moment and think about where it might be coming from, how they might be trying to influence you, how their perspective might be biased in certain ways.”

Hurst has been with the library nearly since the beginning. She started in 1999 when the library was a room in a business park building that UW Bothell temporarily occupied. She physically helped move some of the books to the library on campus. She worked at the library while earning a UW master’s degree in library and information science. Since 2004, Hurst has been head of teaching and learning at the library.