John Cotton Dana

Eight libraries were selected for the 2013 John Cotton Dana Award, honoring outstanding library public relations and marketing with a $10,000 award and plaque.  This award, named after John Cotton Dana, the former head of the Newark (N.J.) Public Library and former president of the American Library Association who died in 1929, has been given continuously since 1946 and is sponsored by EBSCO, the H.W. Wilson Foundation and the Library Leadership and Management Association (LLAMA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA).  It is considered to be the most prestigious of all library awards in the field of public relations and marketing.

“This was a very difficult judging year,” said award committee Chair Kim Terry. “The quality was outstanding. We had entries from a variety of libraries. Many of the submissions came from small-to medium-sized libraries. In these challenging economic times, It’s amazing how wonderfully gifted libraries are at leveraging what they have to produce effective marketing campaigns.

The John Cotton Dana Awards will be presented at a reception sponsored by EBSCO from 4:30 - 6:00 p.m. on Sunday, June 30 during the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago.

Eight libraries were honored:

The Craighead County Jonesboro (Ark.) Public Library “Meme Your Library” campaign engaged their community in a new way and positioned them as a 21st Century Library. The campaign, styled after popular ecards, resulted in increases in usage both physically and virtually, including an increase in mobile site visits by 118 percent and program participation by more than 100 percent.

In 2010 Hood River County Library (Ore.) district closed due to lack of funding. One year later, after a ballot measure to reopen the libraries passed by only 53 percent, the libraries reopened as an independent government agency needing to reboot their relationship with the community. The library’s outreach efforts included hiring bilingual staff, joining community organizations and bringing library services out into the neighborhoods. Despite being open only 25 hours per week for several months, circulation increased 5.2 percent and program attendance was up 20 percent.

The Lawrence (Kan.) Public Library engaged the community in the celebration of Banned Books Week by having local artists competitively design a week’s worth of trading cards. These unique cards succeeded in actively involving the arts community, putting a new marketing twist on typical banned books activities. The campaign attracted collectors and nationwide media attention.

Mid-Continent (Mo.) Public Library developed a cohesive and comprehensive rebranding campaign around the concept of “access” to help shift the perceptions of libraries in their community. The creative “Access Your World” campaign was embraced by library staff and community members alike, indicated by increased usage of online services and customers proudly touting their Access Passes (formerly known as library cards).

Richland Library (S.C.) used customer experience workshops with 400 staff members to “change from the inside out,” identifying the Library’s brand promises to the Richland community. The brand promises became the Library’s foundation for defining what the customer can expect from the library.

The Robert E. Kennedy Library at Cal Poly (Calif.) inspired its students and others around the world to declare, “I’m with the Banned,” through virtual outreach and library programming during 2012 Banned Books Week. An interactive website invited participation from more than 6,000 visitors, and dozens of libraries across the nation linked to the site. Cal Poly students gained awareness of the issue of banned books through multiple channels, including craftwork, t-shirts, exhibits and interviews and a capacity crowd of 500-plus community members attended author Stephen Chbosky’s week-ending talk.

The Santa Clara City (Calif.) Library launched the Project BEST campaign to educate the community about a new California law mandating that all food service employees complete the Food Handler Certification Program. As part of this campaign, the library positioned itself as a resource for job skills development. To this end, the library held 26 food handler classes resulting in 130 students obtaining food handler certification, assisted more than 550 people at job workshops and held a job fair attended by 13 companies and 375 potential job seekers.

Texas Tech Universities (Texas) used several print and electronic channels—even 3-D animation –to successfully reach its student population through six keywords: Action, Create, Help, Relax, Green and Connect. The creative graphical representations of these words could be seen all over campus, and the results were impressive, including a 110 percent increase in student use of the library’s e-resources and a 60 percent increase in Facebook fans.

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El día de los niños/El día de los libros (Children’s Day/Book Day) April 30

Demographers predict that by the year 2050, African Americans, Asian Pacific Islanders, Latino/Hispanics and Native Americans will constitute the majority of Americans.  April 30 is El día de los niños/El día de los libros (Children’s Day/Book Day), also known as Día, and libraries, families and children will celebrate our nation’s rich cultural tapestry.

As our nation becomes more diverse, libraries continue their commitment to connecting children and their families to multicultural books, bilingual services and educational resources.

“Día provides an opportunity for libraries to showcase cultural programs and bilingual resources, “said Association of Library Service to Children President Carolyn Brodie. “Hundreds of libraries will host celebrations that will emphasize the importance of advocating literacy for children of all linguistic and cultural backgrounds.”

Without reading, everything in life is harder. Low literacy is linked to poverty, crime, dependence on government assistance and poor health. Through literacy initiatives like Día, libraries are working with parents and caregivers to spread “bookjoy.”  Current research on early literacy and brain development indicates that it is never too early to prepare children for success as readers.

Libraries are committed to supporting and embracing diversity. According to a study by the American Library Association, Spanish is, by far, the most supported non-English language in public libraries. Seventy-eight percent of libraries reported Spanish as the priority No. 1 language toward which they develop services and programs. Asian languages ranked second in priority at 29 percent. Another 17.6 percent of libraries indicated Indo-European languages as a priority.

Día supports efforts to help children and their families explore library resources and multicultural activities. For example, in Los Angeles children will enjoy stories, songs, crafts and face painting; while the library provides their parents with literacy resources and information on health and social services.  The Bond Hill Library in Cincinnati, Ohio will offer activities in French and Spanish, as well as African drumming and Indian dance.

Parents, caregivers and teachers also can celebrate Dia at home or in their classrooms with free bilingual book lists and activities from the Dia website at http://dia.ala.org.   Resources are available in Chinese and Spanish.

Día is sponsored by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association, and is an enhancement of Children’s Day, which began in 1925.   Children’s Day was designated as a day to bring attention to the importance and well-being of children.   In 1996, nationally acclaimed children’s book author Pat Mora proposed linking the celebration of childhood and children with literacy thus the inception of El día de los niños/El día de los libros.

Through a grant from the Dollar General Literacy Foundation, the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) continues to increase public awareness of the event in libraries throughout the country.  ALSC is collaborating on this effort with Día’s Founder, Pat Mora; and Founding Partner of Día, the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking (REFORMA).

For book lists and additional information on Día please visit http://dia.ala.org.

For information on local events contact your local library, or visit http://cs.ala.org/websurvey/alsc/dia/map.cfm.

About The Association for Library Service to Children

ALSC is the world’s largest organization dedicated to the support and enhancement of library service to children. With a network of more than 4,000 children’s and youth librarians, literature experts, publishers and educational faculty, ALSC is committed to creating a better future for children through libraries. To learn more about ALSC, visit their website at www.ala.org/alsc.

About Dollar General

Dollar General is a leading discount retailer that has been delivering value to shoppers for more than 70 years with over 10,000 stores in 40 states. Dollar General stores provide convenience and value to customers by offering national brand and private-brand merchandise such as food, snacks, health and beauty aids and cleaning supplies, as well as basic apparel, house wares and seasonal items at everyday low prices. The company has a longstanding tradition of supporting literacy and education. Since its inception in 1993, the Dollar General Literacy Foundation has awarded more than $74 million in grants to nonprofit organizations, helping more than 4.4 million individuals take their first steps toward literacy, a general education diploma or English proficiency.

About REFORMA

Established in 1971 as an affiliate of the American Library Association (ALA), REFORMA has actively sought to promote the development of library collections to include Spanish-language and Latino oriented materials; the recruitment of more bilingual and bicultural library professionals and support staff; the development of library services and programs that meet the needs of the Latino community; the establishment of a national information and support network among individuals who share our goals; the education of the U.S. Latino population in regards to the availability and types of library services; and lobbying efforts to preserve existing library resource centers serving the interests of Latinos.

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The American Library Association (ALA) today announced six books as finalists for the 2013 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction, awarded for the previous year’s best fiction and nonfiction books written for adult readers and published in the U.S. Along with a medal presentation at ALA’s annual conference in Chicago, IL, on June 30, each winning author will receive $5,000 and the four finalists will each receive $1,500.

The 2013 shortlisted titles are:

Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction:

“The Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death,” by Jill Lepore. Published by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

From board games, including one called The Mansion of Happiness, to public-library children’s rooms to cryogenics, historian Lepore’s episodic inquiry into our evolving perceptions of life and death is full of surprises, irreverent wit, and arresting perceptions.

“Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis,” by Timothy Egan. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Popular historian Egan turns the life and work of master photographer Edward Curtis into a gripping and heroic story of one man’s commitment to the three-decade project that ultimately resulted in The North American Indian, a 20-volume collection of words and pictures documenting the Native American peoples of the American West.

“Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic,” by David Quammen. Published by W. W. Norton & Company.

Science writer Quammen schools readers in the fascinating if alarming facts about zoonotic diseases—animal infections that sicken humans, such as rabies and Ebola. Drawing on the dramatic history of virology, he profiles brave viral sleuths and recounts his own hair-raising field adventures. A vital, in-depth account offered in the hope that knowledge will engender preparedness.

Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction:

“Canada,” by Richard Ford. Published by Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

“First, I’ll tell you about the robbery our parents committed.”  So begins Ford’s riveting novel, an atmospheric and haunting tale of family, folly, exile, and endurance told in the precise and searching voice of Dell Parsons, a young man forced to navigate a harsh world.

“The Round House,” by Louise Erdrich. Published by Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

In her fourteenth novel, Erdrich writes in the voice of a man reliving the fateful summer of his thirteenth year. Erdrich’s intimacy with her characters energizes this tale of hate crimes and vengeance, her latest immersion in the Ojibwe and white community she has been writing about for more than two decades.

“This Is How You Lose Her,” by Junot Díaz. Published by Riverhead Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc.

Fast paced and street-talking tough, Díaz’s stories unveil lives shadowed by prejudice and poverty and bereft of reliable love and trust. These are precarious, unappreciated lives in which intimacy is a lost art, masculinity a parody, and kindness, reason, and hope struggle to survive like seedlings in a war zone.

The awards, established in 2012, recognize the best of the best in fiction and nonfiction books for adult readers published in the U.S. the previous year and serve as a guide to help adults select quality reading material. They are the first single-book awards for adult books given by the American Library Association and reflect the expert judgment and insight of library professionals who work closely with adult readers. Nancy Pearl, librarian, literature expert, NPR commentator, and best-selling author of “Booklust” serves as chair of the awards’ selection committee.

The awards are made possible by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York in recognition of Andrew Carnegie’s deep belief in the power of books and learning to change the world, and are co-sponsored by ALA’s Booklist publications and the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA).

Annotations and more information on the finalists and the awards can be found athttp://www.ala.org/carnegieadult.

About Carnegie Corporation of New York
Carnegie Corporation of New York was created by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding. In keeping with this mandate, the corporation’s work focuses on the issues that Andrew Carnegie considered of paramount importance: international peace, the advancement of education and knowledge, and the strength of our democracy.

About Booklist
Booklist is the book review magazine of the American Library Association, considered an essential collection development and readers’ advisory tool by thousands of librarians for more than 100 years. Booklist Online includes a growing archive of 135,000+ reviews available to subscribers as well as a wealth of free content offering the latest news and views on books and media.

About Reference and User Services Association (RUSA)
The Reference and User Services Association is responsible for stimulating and supporting excellence in the delivery of general library services and materials, and the provision of reference and information services, collection development, readers’ advisory, and resource sharing for adults, in every type of library.

About ALA
Established in 1876, the American Library Association (ALA) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization created to provide leadership for the development, promotion, and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all.

Contact:
Macey Morales,
Manager Media Relations, ALA
312-280-4393,
mmorales@ala.org.

Additional contact:
Katherine Kelly,
630-200-8023, 
kkellyyma@gmail.com.

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During the week of April 21-27, libraries will celebrate Preservation Week @ your library.

It is a time for libraries to highlight what all of us can do to preserve our personal and shared collections.

The week is highlighted by events and activities, as library patrons receive valuable tips on how to handle everything from home movies to old letters and newspapers.

Libraries, museums, archives and other organizations work every day to preserve cultural history.  Over 4.8 billion artifacts are held in public trust by more than 30,000 archives, historical societies, libraries, museums, scientific research collections and archaeological repositories in the United States.

Why is preservation important?  Some 2.6 billion items are not protected by an emergency plan such as natural disasters, and 1.3 billion of these items are at risk of being lost. If billions of items are at risk at our heritage institutions, than plausibly trillions of items held by the general public are at risk.

During Preservation Week libraries all over the country present events, activities, and resources that highlight what we can do, individually and together, to preserve our personal and shared collections.

Here are some resources to help you preserve your family treasures and learn what to when disaster strikes. There’s also an activity guide filled with fun projects to get the whole family involved.

For Preservation Week 2013, the American Library Association (ALA) has created a new section on the Preservation @your Library website focusing on issues that military personnel, their families and their friends encounter when they want to save, document or record their family’s military experience.

Librarians who serve this community were asked for information and suggestions based on their interaction with their patrons. Their wonderful feedback has made this new webpage,For Military Families, possible (http://atyourlibrary.org/passiton/military-families). The page features articles and resources. New, print-ready handouts, “Quick Preservation Tips: for Military Families” and “Quick Preservation Tips: Take the First Step” can be passed on to library patrons for easy reference.

This information is just the tip of the iceberg, and this effort is the beginning of a much longer conversation. To share personal stories that illustrate the importance of saving and preserving meaningful keepsakes for future family members, please share them on thePreservation Week Facebook page. Your stories and examples can encourage military families to take the time to preserve these important memories.

There are additional resources recommended to help librarians who serve military families and veterans on the Preservation Week website.

Steve Berry, New York Times best-selling author, is the first national spokesperson for Preservation Week. Berry started as spokesperson in January 2012 with an appearance at the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting in Dallas, where he gave the keynote presentation at the Preservation Week 2012 Kick Off, sponsored by the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS). He also commented on his role and the Preservation Week initiative in a YouTube video. We are thrilled that Steve Berry has agreed to continue as Preservation Week Spokesperson for 2013.

Berry is the author of 10 novels, including his most recent book, The Columbus Affair (Ballantine, May 2012), featuring as protagonist Tom Sagan, a disgraced Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. His next book, The King’s Deception, will be released in June 2013.

Berry’s works have been translated into 40 languages with more than 12 million books in print in 51 countries worldwide. Other titles include The Emperor’s Tomb, The Paris Vendetta, The Alexandria Link and The Venetian Betrayal.

A devoted student of history, Berry and his wife, Elizabeth, founded History Matters, a nonprofit organization dedicated to aiding the preservation of the fragile reminders of our past. Since then, they have traveled the world raising much-needed funds for a wide range of historic preservation projects.

In a recent Wall Street Journal interview (Nov. 2, 2011), Mr. Berry notes, “What are we losing when that [on being told of the rapid loss of our historical record] happens? We’re losing windows to the past, thoughts to the past and ideas to the past, and that really affected me.”

A native of Georgia, Steve Berry graduated from the Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University. You can learn more about Steve Berry and History Matters at steveberry.org.

As National Spokesperson, Berry appears in print and digital public service announcements (PSAs) promoting Preservation Week. Other promotional materials include a sample op-ed, proclamation, press release and scripts for use in radio ads.  All tools are available at www.ala.org/preservationweek.

Preservation Week is also part of the ALA @yourlibrary campaign.  Visit thepreservation@yourlibrary page at www.atyourlibrary/passiton.

Preservation Week @ your library is an initiative, the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS), a division of the American Library Association (ALA).

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Libraries and library staff continue to respond to the needs of their communities, providing key resources as budgets are reduced, speaking out forcefully against book-banning attempts and advocating for free access to digital content in libraries, with a keen focus placed on ebook formats.

Led by the American Library Association (ALA), libraries offer resources often unavailable elsewhere during an economic “recovery” that finds about 12 million Americans unemployed and millions more underemployed. And the library community continues to rally support for school libraries, which seem destined to bear the brunt of federal budget sequestration.

These and other library trends of the past year are detailed in the ALA’s 2013 State of America’s Libraries Report, released today during National Library Week, April 14 – 20.

The more than 16,000 public libraries nationwide “offer a lifeline to people trying to adapt to challenging economic circumstances by providing technology training and online resources for employment, access to government resources, continuing education, retooling for new careers, and starting a small business,” according to ALA President Maureen Sullivan. Three-fourths of public libraries offer software and other resources to help patrons create résumés and employment materials, and library staff helps patrons complete online job applications.

Meanwhile, there were events held nationwide that highlighted the benefits of free access to information and the perils of censorship by spotlighting the actual or attempted banning of books. Events like Banned Books Week, sponsored by the ALA and other organizations to stress the importance of maintaining First Amendment rights, marked its 30th anniversary Sept. 30–Oct. 6, 2012.

A perennial highlight of Banned Books Week is the Top Ten List of Frequently Challenged Books, compiled annually by the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF). OIF collects reports on book challenges from librarians, teachers, concerned individuals and press reports. A challenge is defined as a formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that a book or other material be restricted or removed because of its content or appropriateness. In 2012, OIF received 464 reports on attempts to remove or restrict materials from school curricula and library bookshelves. This is an increase from 2011 totals, which stood at 326 attempts.

The most challenged books of 2012 are: “Captain Underpants” (series), by Dav Pilkey; “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” by Sherman Alexie; “Thirteen Reasons Why,” by Jay Asher; “Fifty Shades of Grey,” by E. L. James; “And Tango Makes Three,” by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson; “The Kite Runner,” by Khaled Hosseini; “Looking for Alaska,” by John Green; “Scary Stories” (series), by Alvin Schwartz; “The Glass Castle,” by Jeanette Walls: and “Beloved,” by Toni Morrison.

School libraries are bracing for further budget cuts as federal funding to the states shrinks and the states begin to reduce aid to education. Deborah Rigsby, director of federal legislation for the National School Boards Association, warned that this could lead to the closing of school libraries, among other things.

And Carl Harvey II, past-president of the American Association of School Librarians (2011 – 2012), said eliminating school librarian positions betrays “an ignorance of the key role school librarians play in a child’s education… . The value of school librarians has been measured in countless studies demonstrating that strong school library programs help students learn more and score higher on standardized achievement tests.”

As the ongoing economic slump leads many Americans to re-examine their financial circumstances, libraries are responding in many ways. Public and community college libraries, for example, provide patrons with reliable financial information and investor education resources and programs, many of which target teens and young adults.

Digital content and libraries, and most urgently the issue of ebooks, also continues to be a focus of the library community. Libraries and publishers of ebooks have spent much of the past year seeking some middle ground that will allow greater library access to ebooks and still compensate publishers appropriately.

Just recently Penguin Group USA removed a six-month embargo on new releases licensed to libraries and instead will offer new ebook titles immediately after they are released in the consumer market. Although other terms are expected to continue, including a one-year expiration date on ebooks licensed to libraries, this new development comes at a time when the ALA continues to reach out to the nation’s top publishers to explore ebook lending models in U.S. libraries.

But libraries have experienced changes that reach well beyond economics and the digital revolution to embrace community relationships, user expectations, library services, physical space, library leadership and the library workforce.

“You are on the front lines of a battle that that will shape the future of our country,” Caroline Kennedy told librarians at the ALA’s 2013 Midwinter Meeting in Seattle. “Whether it is [for] providing a social environment for seniors, a safe space for kids after school, or a maker-space to unleash the talent in the community, libraries are becoming more important than ever.”

Other key trends detailed in the 2013 State of America’s Libraries Report:

• Changes in technology and social networking continue at a dizzying pace, and libraries maintain their role as technology leaders — not in being first adopters, but in being early users of effective technologies.
• Academic librarians are helping students learn how to analyze information and apply it to new contexts, reflect on what they know, identify what they still need to learn and sort through contradictory arguments.
• Despite the anemic economy, library construction continued apace in 2012, concrete evidence that libraries still bring solid economic dividends to the communities they serve. The trend toward renovation, as opposed to new construction, was particularly striking.

The full text of the 2013 State of America’s Libraries Report is available at http://tinyurl.com/salr2013. The Zmags version of the report is available at American Libraries Magazine.

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School Library Month (SLM) is the American Association of School Librarians’ (AASL) celebration of school librarians and their programs. Every April school librarians are encouraged to create activities to help their school and local community celebrate the essential role that strong school library programs play in a student’s educational career. The 2013 theme is Communities matter @ your library®.

AASL, a division of the American Library Association (ALA), on its website, offers a number of resources and activities to help librarians celebrate the event.

They include a series of webinars produced by the AASL Advocacy Committee.

In addition, librarians can decorate their library or library website with the Communities Matter @ your library poster and web graphics.

Also, audio public service announcements are available in English and Spanish to share with local media.

For more information, watch AASL’s Twitter and Facebook accounts for daily posts and be sure to share and retweet to spread the word.
Below is a video featuring several authors sharing their favorite experiences with school libraries.

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