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A. Ralph Papakhian and Sue Ellen Stancu are the joint recipients of the Music OCLC Users Group's (MOUG) Distinguished Service Award. This award was established to recognize and honor a librarian who has made significant professional contributions to music users of OCLC. The MOUG executive board selects a recipient based on nominations received from the MOUG membership.

Ralph Papakhian's involvement with MOUG goes back to its infancy, first documented in the mimeographed issue 3 of the MOUG Newsletter (January 1979), when Olga Buth announced his appointment as vice-chair with this prescient, if understated, introduction: "Ralph is an excellent candidate for this position. He is the music cataloger at Indiana University and is presently using the OCLC database for cataloging. Undoubtedly he will bring valuable experience to this position." By the next issue, he was a co-editor of the Newsletter. Some highlights of Ralph's accomplishments within MOUG include his work on committees, becoming the NACO Music Project coordinator in 1987, and service as MOUG chair from 1994-96. The MOUG board recognized Ralph's contributions in other arenas, as well--service as executive secretary of the Music Library Association (MLA) board from 1988-92; recipient of the MLA Special Achievement Award in 1992 for his role in creating and shepherding the MLA-L electronic discussion list; creator of the MLA Clearinghouse; and recipient of the Richard S. Hill Award in 2002. Mark Scharff, MOUG chair, also noted, when presenting the award to Ralph, "You've carried the torch for music cataloging into the generalist world through active participation in discussions on the AUTOCAT electronic discussion list."

Sue Ellen Stancu's involvement with MOUG was first documented in the mimeographed, 5-page issue 4 of the MOUG Newsletter (September 1979), where her name appears as co-editor of the Newsletter with Ralph Papakhian. Sue became sole editor (and MOUG secretary) in issue 14, and remained as such until issue 28. In subsequent years, she remained active in MOUG through serving on committees and task forces and making presentations, the latest at the 2005 meeting in Vancouver, B.C. She was one of the earliest independent contributors in the NACO Music Project, and continues to serve as a reviewer for new participants. She has also been very active in MLA, with service on several subcommittees of its Bibliographic Control Committee, and the Nominating Committee, and in the MLA Midwest Chapter, serving as secretary-treasurer from 1991-93.

While these achievements are worthy of gratitude and praise, Ralph and Sue's chief claim to the Distinguished Service Award is their immense contribution to educating and inspiring music catalogers. Much of that has been a team effort. As faculty members in the Music Librarianship Program in the Indiana University School of Library and Information Science, in spearheading the Title II-C retrospective conversion project, and in serving as co-coordinators and instructors in the summer Music Cataloging Workshop at IU since 1996, they have shaped the...

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