The award, for services to NHS libraries, comes towards the end of twelve months, which, Judy says, "are the height of a librarian’s career". During that time, of course, she has seen the opening of two major new library facilities, one in the Sussex County’s Audrey Emerton Building and the other in the Sussex Education Centre at Mill View Hospital.

As head of library services, Judy is also responsible for libraries at the Princess Royal and the Royal Alex as well running the library service for the medical school.

But when she arrived from after spell as a graduate trainee in the House of Commons library and a post in Croydon Reference Library back in 1973 as the Sussex Postgraduate Medical Centre’s first professional librarian she started with, she says, "just a roomful of books."

In those days the library was the exclusive preserve of medical staff: doctors who paid a guinea a year were allowed to borrow one book at a time; for two guineas they could borrow two books.

Judy immediately set about changing things. She overcame strong consultant opposition and before the end of the year the Bulletin was able to report that the library service was available for use by nurses. It was only the first step towards opening the library’s doors to all hospital staff.

Significantly, when the new library that opened in the Audrey Emerton Building last year replacing the one at Brighton Postgraduate Medical Centre, it was part of a multidisciplinary educational facility.

No better illustration of the change that Judy has always encouraged was the library’s acquisition of an encyclopaedia of plants following a request from the trust’s gardening staff.

Judy says: "I’ve had very good line managers who have always gone out and got funding for so many innovations that have made the NHS library in Brighton one to be proud of.

"We were the first NHS library in the South East to use CD ROMs, the first to use Medline giving access to the National Library of Medicine in the United States – for which we were originally charged for by the minute."

Electronics in the library now feature as much as books and professional journals. A skills trainer, for example, is available to show staff how to use the internet successfully and for busy clinical staff the team members are happy to do internet searches for them.

Judy is quick to pay tribute to her staff. "Although they are funded from different places, they work as a team to ensure that everybody benefits, all NHS in the locality of Brighton, Hove and Lewes."

"It’s important," she adds, "to see the library not just as being for research, it’s for patient care and professional development as well."

Anyone who knows Judy is well aware how different she is from the stereotypical librarian allegedly best known for telling readers to "shhh".

In the early days she was once herself requested by a reader to be quiet and not talk in the library. "I didn’t say who I was," Judy recalls. "It was a bright sunny day, the door was open, so I did what I was asked and left the library!"

Looking at the way local NHS library services have developed since those early days at the Sussex PGMC, it’s clear that Judy’s award is one that’s richly deserved.