Randall Library awarded Pelican Award

Nathan Johnson | Intern

The University of North Carolina Wilmington’s William Madison Randall Library received the Pelican Award on Aug. 2, 2014. The award was presented at the North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation uses the Pelican Award to recognize the effective effort of people improving the, “environmental quality on the N.C. coast,” according to the N.C. Coastal Federation website. “Award recipients have demonstrated exemplary commitment and undertaken meaningful actions to protect and restore our coast.”

UNCW received the award because of the work done processing the Federation’s collection of documents. “They gave us their papers seven years ago, said Gerald Parnell, Coordinator of Library Special Collections.

“The first twenty five years’ worth of papers were the Coastal Federation’s and we have been working on processing and recently completed a website, and they gave us the award for the process of making their papers available,” Parnell said.

Parnell attended the luncheon and received the award on behalf of the library. He was present when the collection was brought to UNCW.

“We put a lot of work into this collection, it’s a really nice collection, and hopefully it’s going to be used a lot by students and the public,” Parnell said.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation advocates and organizes projects in the community. They also work with state and federal lobbyists for the environment to ensure that environmental regulations get passed.

Rebecca Baugnon, library specialist, spent seven straight months finishing The Coastal Federation’s digital archive website. This involved cataloging their documents and making them available online.

“It’s a recognition of our dedication to preserving the cultural heritage of southeastern North Carolina, of which the Coastal Federation is a major part,” said Baugnon.

The Coastal Federation’s collection consisted of over 120 boxes of papers including federal and state laws, drafts of laws, correspondence, newspapers, working documents, and included projects they were working on for major issues such as water quality, wetlands and restoring oyster beds.

“When I started, it was 35 percent done,” said Baugnon. “There were boxes stacked as tall as I was in every office. We needed the space to do other things so it became a priority.”

Winning the Pelican Award was personal for Baugnon because of the months of work dedicated to finishing the project. UNCW was tasked with generating this collection into a website because it is the only coastal university in the UNC system.

Baugnon’s personal research of coastal policy helped to ensure the documents corresponded with the correct company because in 25 years some institutions changed their names.

The next five years’ worth of material will be added into the website with much less effort thanks to the work of Baugnon and many others. The website will be continuously updated with new information from the Coastal Federation once the information is received by the university.