Paromita Biswas named UCLA’s 2025 Librarian of the Year

Paromita Biswas, continuing resources metadata librarian at UCLA Library, has been honored with the 2025 Librarian of the Year Award, presented by the Librarians Association of the University of California-Los Angeles. Established in 1994, the award celebrates excellence in librarianship in one or more areas: creativity, innovation, courage, leadership and inclusivity.

"Under Biswas' leadership, UCLA Library now has clear policies in place to ethically describe the resources under its care," said Abigail Connick, UCLA's cataloging and metadata librarian and chair of the award committee. "Over the past year, Biswas further extended the impact of this considerable effort by sharing and discussing outcomes with other library professionals at the state and national level. She understood that others in the field could benefit from learning about the process and results as well."

Biswas joined UCLA Library in 2018, working with linked data and serials, including journals. She has served as the library's lead for the Ethical Description Project Team (EDPT) since 2021, and through her leadership, the working group has achieved key deliverables to support inclusive access to UCLA's collections. These include the creation of an Ethical Description Statement - a brief harmful language statement that appears on all catalog records and enables users to report descriptions and subjects they find problematic - and a research guide for catalogers interested in independently pursuing ethical description work.

"I enjoy the collaborative aspect of leading the EDPT team. I particularly like getting to work with people whom I wouldn't usually partner with from across UCLA, including reference and instruction librarians and staff from the UCLA Library Modern Endangered Archives Program and the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library staff. All of the team members are dedicated; we've been working together for almost four years, and if someone is interested in an ethical description project for their unit, I know we will do our best to support each other in implementing it."

Professionally active, Biswas is a member of the American Librarian Association's Core division and the California Library Association. She is a founding member of the South Asia Funnel for the Program for Cooperative Cataloging's (PCC) Subject Authority Cooperative, a group that determines best practices and standards for creating and defining controlled subject headings. Biswas is an active contributor to the PCC's Cooperative Online Serials Program (CONSER) for continuing resources, including its Directory of Open Access Journals project, single-handedly contributing enough to cover what is required for all UCLA staff toward CONSER.

She is currently working on local implementation of a UC-wide pilot project to add "Homosaurus" headings, an internationally linked data vocabulary of LGBTQ terms, to relevant catalog records to increase access to these resources for underrepresented groups. Sponsored and co-led by members of the EDPT, the project runs through September 2025.

Along with the honor, Biswas received a plaque and $500 in professional development funds. Founded in 1967 and formally recognized as an official unit of the University of California in 1975, the Librarians Association of the University of California-Los Angeles advises on professional and governance matters; makes recommendations concerning UCLA librarians' rights, privileges and obligations; and promotes full utilization of UCLA librarians' professional abilities.

The award committee commended all the eligible 2025 Librarian of the Year nominees for their work, including Stephanie Anayah, Tomoko Bialock, Molly Hemphill, Katherine Kapsidelis, Simon Lee, Sherry Leysen, Michelle Li, Ming Liu and Sylvia Page.