CONGRATS

Gautam Chaudhuri, professor and chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, is serving a four-year term on the National Advisory Child Health and Human Development Council for the NIH.... Francesco Chiappelli, associate professor in the School of Dentistry’s Division of Oral Biology and Medicine, was nominated guest editor for a special issue on evidence-based dentistry, to be published by the Brazilian Journal of Oral Science. He and colleagues Mark Cruz, lecturer in the Division of Restorative Dentistry, Michael Newman, professor of periodontics, and Paolo Prolo, postdoctoral scholar in the Division of Oral Biology and Medicine, also launched the International Society in Evidence-Based Dentistry.... The Center for Intercultural Performance/Department of World Arts and Cultures has produced “Envisioning Dance on Film and Video,” a book with an accompanying DVD that provides comprehensive information on the subject of collaboration between filmmakers and dance-makers. The work was co-edited by the center’s director, Judy Mitoma, and has been published by Routledge.

KUDOS

Ronald Mito, associate dean for clinical dental sciences, has been named co-director of the Learning Seminar Series, a project funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration. The purpose of the five-year project is to develop and implement a training program in leadership and advocacy for faculty and residents.... Roger Pigozzi, assistant director/executive chef for dining and catering services at UCLA, has earned the Certified Executive Chef designation from the American Culinary Federation.... The disputed region of Nagorno-Karabagh has given UCLA Armenian scholar Richard Hovannisian one of its top honors for intellectual endeavors. The holder of UCLA’s Armenian Educational Foundation Chair in Modern Armenian History received the Mesrop Mashtots Medal from Arkady Ghougassian, president of the Nagorno-Karabagh Republic.... Jonsson Cancer Center researcher Mike Teitell received a prestigious Scholar Award from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to further his research into the causes of lymphoma. The five-year, $500,000 grant will fund his work on the world’s first animal model for mature human B-cell lymphomas.

IN MEMORIAM

Seymour Lubetzky, a faculty member in the former UCLA School of Library Service and a leading theorist in the field of descriptive cataloging, died on April 5. He was 104Born in poverty in what was then the small Russian village of Zelwa, Lubetzky studied literature and languages and taught at the primary and secondary levels when the village came under Polish control. He immigrated to the United States when he was in his late 20s and enrolled at UCLA, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in languages — he mastered six — and a certificate in library science. He received a master’s degree at UC Berkeley but found academic opportunities slim due to the Depression and a degree of anti-Semitism in the hiring practices of American universities at the time. Lubetzky returned to UCLA in 1936 and worked as cataloger and classifier in the library. While there, he became interested in the organizational problems of cataloging and began to write articles on the subject. He soon established a national reputation for his scholarly work. In 1943, he went to work for the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and found a cataloging system full of inconsistencies and redundancies. He eliminated many unnecessary rules from the classification scheme and urged a coherent set of principles that could apply to the classification of works from all types of institutions. His theories came into widespread use in the 1960s. At the International Conference on Cataloging Principles in Paris in 1961, he read a paper that presented views that he had developed in the course of revising the catalog code. Many of his views prevailed at the conference and became the adopted standard in international cataloging. After the Paris conference, Lubetzky returned to UCLA, which he had joined in 1960 as a faculty member in the School of Library Service. His course on descriptive cataloging became the intellectual core of the school’s master’s program. Lubetzky officially retired in 1969, but he continued to write, lecture and consult..... The life of Douglas A. Martin — former special assistant to the chancellor — who died on Jan. 3, will be celebrated at a memorial on May 8, from 4-6 p.m. in Dickson Court North. No RSVP is necessary. Guests arriving from off-campus who need parking assistance should call Jan Paley at (310) 825-2242; TYY: (310) 206-3349.