The Reference and User Services Association is recognizing longtime Athens resident Paula Laurita with its Federal Achievement Award in 2024.
Laurita is the Command Librarian at the U.S. Army Materiel Command Headquarters at Redstone Arsenal. The Federal Achievement Award recognizes individuals for achievement in the promotion of library and information service and the information profession in the Federal community. It has been administered by RUSA since the Federal and Armed Forces Libraries Interest Group joined RUSA in 2020.
Paula Laurita worked in other library settings before continuing her career in federal organizations, where she has helped advance information services. Laurita served in the U.S. Army and earned her MLIS from the University of Alabama. She worked in school and public libraries, including nearly a decade as executive director of the Athens-Limestone Public Library, before becoming director of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Technical Library. Since 2022, she has been command librarian at Army Materiel Command. She is Alabama’s representative on the ALA Council.
In nomination letters, she was praised for her “exceptional leadership skills as well as her fierce dedication and passion to advocate for libraries and library personnel,” and described as “widely respected as an expert in her field and mentor to others.”
The Federal Achievement Award was created by the Federal Librarians Round Table, which merged with the Armed Forces Libraries Round Table in 2001 to form the Federal and Armed Forces Libraries Round Table. FAFLRT merged in 2018 with the Association of Specialized Government and Cooperative Library Agencies and established two separate interest groups (the Federal Libraries Interest Group and the Armed Forces Libraries Interest Group), which merged in 2020 to form the Federal and Armed Forces Libraries Interest Group. When ASGCLA was dissolved later that year, FAFLIG moved to the Reference and User Services Association as an interest group.