FAU President Dr.John Kelly presented Maxine Schackman with this prestigious award on April 22, 2015.

Maxine was nominated for the prestigious Jeffrey Gabor Exemplary Employee Award by Rita Pellen, Interim Dean of FAU Libraries. In her nomination letter Pellen praised Schackman for her hard work building up the Judaica Sound Archives since the early 2000’s.

In 2009, when she stepped in as director, Schackman expanded the scope of the online archives by including rare historic vintage and jazz recordings.

In 2013 the Recorded Sound Archives made the news when, with the help of Peter Muldavin, the “Kiddie Rekord King,” they rescued over 800 vintage children’s recordings from a flooded storage facility after SuperStorm Sandy hit Long Island. Schackman and her crew worked tirelessly for a year to digitize the sound and images that had been damaged. Now this wonderful collection of recordings are available online. For more about this story see video here.

Pellen also praised Schackman for being a leader in the development and expansion of the Judaica Sound Archives, making it the largest online collection of Jewish recordings in the world. “Under her leadership the RSA at FAU Libraries has become known as the ‘go to’ place for rare and difficult to find recordings of Jewish and other vintage music.”

According to Schackman, “When I became director in 2009 my first goal was to totally revamp our very popular website. It was a great website and had an amazing number of digitized sound tracks but it was old technology and I knew we just couldn’t survive in the 21st century without going mobile. Now the JSA and other RSA recordings are available on mobile devices using streaming audio technology. Now people can take the music with them wherever they go.”

“This award means a lot to me. I have dedicated the past 13 years of my life to the Judaica Sound Archives and more recently, the Recorded Sound Archives. I worked very hard but I loved every minute of it. I loved talking to groups and introducing them to the wonderful music we have rescued and preserved. I am very proud of the contribution that I have made to FAU Libraries. I am very grateful to my dedicated staff and to the many students who have worked for us over the years.  I am especially grateful to the volunteers without whom none of this would have been possible. This award is a wonderful capstone for my career since I will be retiring on June 30, 2015.”