The Carnegie Corporation of New York and the New York Times are seeking nominations for the 2008 I Love My Librarian Award. Up to ten librarians will be honored. Each will receive $5,000 and be recognized at an awards ceremony hosted by The New York Times at TheTimesCenter in December 2008.
I can think of no better nominee than James LaRue, whose balanced, thoughtful response to a request for removing LGBT-themed children’s book Uncle Bobby’s Wedding
You can nominate librarians in three categories: those who work in public libraries, like LaRue (nominations due October 1), those who work at a college, community college or university (nominations due October 15), and school library media specialists (nominations due October 15).
The questions you must answer about your nominee(s) are geared towards nominees one knows personally, but I think it’s easy enough to interpret them broadly and talk about how LaRue’s actions have positively impacted families far from his library in Colorado. I have no idea how the award judges will view such distance nominations, but I figure it’s worth a shot. LaRue is one librarian making a difference far beyond his own community.
Of course, if you have a local favorite librarian, by all means nominate her or him instead. Librarians are an under-recognized resource, and deserve all the acclaim they can get.
Brava! A capitol idea! Thanks to your post, I read his letter to the “challenger,” and went on to look at the rest of his writings. I even wrote his name and book title — “The New Inquisition: Understanding and Managing Intellectual Freedom Challenges” — on the board, during a guest presentation on LGBT family diversity in children’s lit (for a children’s lit class taught by my daughter’s preschool director, through the local community college).
He would be a deserving honoree! Thank you for alerting us to this.