ANN ARBOR—What do George Bush, Bill Clinton and Grace York have in common? They all are baby boomers who turned 60 this year and are attempting to make an impact on government.

York, librarian and coordinator of the University of Michigan Documents Center at the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library, recently was awarded the James Bennett Childs Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Library Association for her ” distinguished and sustained contributions to government documents librarianship.”

The award, administered by the association’s Government Documents Round Table, is based on distinguished stature, service and publication in the field.

The award credits York for recognizing ” the potential value of networked telecommunications to librarianship” and being ” one of the earliest people to put it to work for us and our patrons’ benefit, first in the form of Gopher and then as the mighty Documents Center Web site.”

Launched in April 1995, the site now receives more than 40 million hits per year. This popularity stems from its relevance to what people are asking in person or via e-mail” inquiries that range from state-based election data or employment law on coffee breaks.

Center staff members routinely answer e-mail questions generated by the Web site from people and organizations around the state, country and world. Staff members try to provide a specific answer from free sources on the Internet. People seeking legal advice, however, are referred to the text of the law so they can make their own interpretations. Those seeking the causes of terrorism are referred to the 9/11 Commission Report.

Undergraduates are more likely to use the center’s Web site, while graduate students, faculty and researchers often visit the center itself for material they don’t find on the Web. The center is a repository for documents from the U.S., Michigan, United Nations and Canada and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N., Asian Development Bank. Typical questions range from changes in immigration policy to the age and sex of Senegalese in New York City who have not become U.S. citizens.

The Web site’s predecessor, the Ulibrary Gopher, boasted several Internet innovations, including free distribution of government census and economic data and the first congressional e-mail list. The Childs Award also cited York’s work with the U.S. Census Bureau and State Department.

A 1969 graduate of the then-School of Information and Library Studies (rechartered as the School of Information in 1996), York was serenaded at the awards ceremony by a Garrison Keillor version of ” The Victors” with the words: We are facilitators; We retrieve data entries; We deal in information, not just in books; Rah, Rah, Rah. Only two other graduates from the school have been given this prestigious award: Francis Buckley Jr. and Lois Mills.

York is a previous recipient of the Paul W. Thurston and Lifetime Achievement Awards (Government Documents Round Table of Michigan), Documents to the People Award (Government Documents Round Table, American Library Association) and Marta Lange Award (ALA Law and Political Political Science Round Table).

Hatcher Graduate Library