Nominations Open for 2018 Lemony Snicket Prize for Noble Librarians Faced with Adversity

Nominations open for 2018 Lemony Snicket Prize for Noble Librarians Faced with Adversity

ALA News: 12.05.2017

Librarians face adversity every day, whether they are defending a challenged book or patron, responding to collection and building damage after floods and fires, remaining open as a safe space during civil unrest or fighting to provide services on a limited budget.

If you know a librarian who has gone above and beyond the normal requirements of librarianship to stand up in the face of adversity with dignity and honor, please consider giving that person some much needed recognition by nominating them for the 2018 Lemony Snicket Prize for Noble Librarians Faced with Adversity.

ALA is currently accepting nominations through February 1, 2018 for this award.  The prize consists of $10,000 along with an odd, symbolic object from Snicket’s private stash, and a certificate. The nominee must be a librarian.

Past winners include:

Steven Woolfolk (2017), Director of Programming and Marketing at the Kansas City Public Library, who protested police action in defense of a patron’s basic First Amendment rights.

Melanie Townsend Diggs (2016), Pennsylvania Avenue branch manager of Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library, who helped keep patrons safe in the civil unrest and protests after the shooting of Freddie Gray.

Scott Bonner (2015), director of the Ferguson Public Library in Missouri, who kept the branch open and engaged in the midst of the Ferguson riots.

Laurence Copel (2014), youth outreach librarian, who opened the Lower Ninth Ward Street Library in her home and converted her bicycle to a mobile book carrier to reach children and families in weather-damaged areas of New Orleans.

According to Snicket, it is his hope that, “The Snicket Prize will remind readers everywhere of the joyous importance of librarians and the trouble that is all too frequently unleashed upon them.”