Jillian Ewalt, librarian for visual resources at the University of Dayton’s Marian Library, is the 2019 recipient of the Sister M. Claude Lane, O.P., Memorial Award given by the Society of American Archivists (SAA) in conjunction with the Society of Southwest Archivists. The award honors an archivist who has made a significant contribution to the field of religious archives.
Ewalt has been active in a number of religious archives organizations including the Catholic Research Resources Alliance (CRRA). As an early member and contributor to CRRA, Ewalt led the submission of more than 200 records for finding aids and digital images. Thanks to her active research agenda, Ewalt has made several contributions to the literature on religious archives, publishing in Archival Issues, Theological Librarianship, and Catholic Library World, among others. She has also presented at CRRA’s annual meeting on issues related to research with Catholic archives. Ewalt’s work in preservation, description, and outreach allows students to experience archival collections in the classroom and provides scholars from around the world with access to the library’s religious archival collections.
One of Ewalt’s supporters notes that she brings “a collaborative, creative, service-oriented spirit to her work with faith-based collections. She is committed to promoting collections as research and teaching tools and has developed collaborative partnerships across the institution and community to increase the impact of Marian Library’s special collections.”