Nominations for LibraryAware Community Award Due Jan. 24

The LibraryAware Community Award recognizes an individual library or a whole system that has demonstrated its ability to make its community “aware” of what the library can do for it and has delivered on that promise. According to the nomination page at http://bit.ly/2hpxt7v, one of the contest’s goals is to “demonstrate why libraries deserve the resources necessary to deliver the services that result in healthier, more prosperous, and more engaged cities, towns, and villages.”

The award will be given by Library Journal and funded by LibraryAware (www.libraryaware.com), a product of EBSCO Publishing’s NoveList division. Judges will award first, second, and third prizes, which will be $10,000, $7,500, and $5,000 respectively. See the nomination page for full criteria and requirements; send entries by Jan. 24.

‘I Love My Librarian Award’ Winners

Again this year, 10 librarians from across the country were honored with the I Love My Librarian Award. They were selected from nearly 1,100 nominations from the public, which detailed how their favorite librarians from public, school, college, community college, or university libraries connected them to information and helped improve the quality of their lives. This year’s winners are:

• Danielle S. Apfelbaum, New York Institute of Technology, Old Westbury, N.Y.
• Andrea Bernard, Tyler MemoriaLibrary, Charlemont, Mass.
• Olga Valencia Cardenas, Stanislaus County Library, Modesto, Calif.
• Elissa Checov, Gwinnett TechnicaCollege/Gwinnett County Public Library, Lawrenceville, Ga.
• Kathryn Cole, Northside Elementary School, Chapel Hill, N.C.
• Tabatha Farney, University of Colorado–Colorado Springs, Colorado
• Sherri Ginsberg, Hillsides Library, Pasadena, Calif.
• Lia Kharis Hillman, San Francisco Public Library
• Jamille Rogers, Marguerite Vann Elementary School, Conway, Ark.
• Roosevelt Weeks, Sr., Houston Public Library

Each honoree received a $5,000 prize at a ceremony and reception in New York. The ceremony was hosted by the philanthropic foundation Carnegie Corp. of New York, which co-sponsors the award along with The New York Public Library and The New York Times. The ALA administers the award. For more details, see www.ilovelibraries.org/ilovemylibrarian.

New Workshop on Using Surveys

ALA Editions announced a workshop called “Using Surveys to Improve Your Library.” Assessment experts Emily Daly and Joyce Chapman will run this pair of 90-minute sessions, which will take place on Feb. 1 and Feb. 8. Session one will introduce participants to survey planning, piloting, and methods for selecting sample populations. The second session will focus on survey design and implementation.

Attendees will learn strategies for writing actionable, unbiased survey questions along with related practical skills. The cost is $75 for individuals and $150 for groups of three or more people (www.alastore.ala .org/detail.aspx?ID=11895).

PLA Shares Project Outcome’s AnnuaReport

The Public Library Association (PLA) has released the first annual report for Project Outcome. You can access it free at www.projectoutcome .org/annual-report to see what participating libraries did, to learn how patrons benefited, and to analyze survey results. So far, Project Outcome has more than 2,000 participants from 1,000-plus public libraries across the U.S. and Canada and has aggregated more than 40,000 patron surveys. The data shows how much libraries have improved patrons’ lives.

Project Outcome is a free toolkit designed to help public librarians understand and share the impact of services and programs by providing simple surveys and a process for measuring and analyzing outcomes. The initiative also provides resources and training support so librarians can “apply their results and confidently advocate for their library’s future, helping them turn better data into better libraries.”

You can learn more and register for free at  www.projectoutcome.org.

Updated E-Course on Marketing

ALA Editions is releasing a new iteration of its e-course, How to Market Your Library . It will be a 4-week online class that will take about 24 totahours. Librarian Dana Braccia will facilitate the course, which starts on Feb. 6, 2017. It will cover basic terminology, PR campaigns, sociamedia, branding, analytics, and more.

Registration is required for the $175 course. To see the fuloutline and to sign up, go to www.alastore.ala.org/detai.aspx?ID=11697.