Behind the Awards

January 25, 2010

Each year, the American Library Association seeks to honor those who have rendered distinguished service to libraries and librarianship. Such recognition is made for individual achievement of a high order in some area of librarianship. The winners of ALA awards for individual achievement constitute a "hall of fame" for librarianship.

But the men and women in whose honor the awards are named are often little known. This photo essay offers a glimpse into the lives of a few of the people who have had an award, scholarship, or other commendation named for them. They include librarians, authors, illustrators, and civil rights workers. Not everyone included here had a direct impact on libraries or literature during their own lives, but all of them left their mark on the profession in some way.

This month, ALA launched a database organizing information about its full list of awards and recipients. The database can be used to explore the different awards that are offered, the past winners of awards, and how someone can apply for an award.

Coretta Scott King Book Award. Coretta Scott King (1927 - 2006) is most famous for being the wife of Martin Luther King Jr., but she established a distinguished career in activism in her own right. She took part in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 and worked to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act. She became the first women to deliver the Class Day address at Harvard and the first women to preach at a statutory service at St. Paul's Cathedral in London. King remained active in causes of racial and economic in

Randolph Caldecott Medal. Randolph Caldecott (1846 - 1886) was an English artist who illustrated picture books, fiction, verse, and fables for children as well as poetry, novels, and nonfiction for adults. He is regarded as one of the most influential illustrators in the field on children's literature. Caldecott is best known for creating sixteen picture books that feature traditional nursery rhymes and songs and eighteenth-century comic poems. His first two books, <em>The House that Jack Built</em> and <em>The Diverting History of John Gilpin</em>, were published in 1878, and he continued to publish two books full of rhymes of his own choosing or writing every year until his death.” alt=”Randolph Caldecott Medal. Randolph Caldecott (1846 – 1886) was an English artist who illustrated picture books, fiction, verse, and fables for children as well as poetry, novels, and nonfiction for adults. He is regarded as one of the most influential illustrators in the field on children’s literature. Caldecott is best known for creating sixteen picture books that feature traditional nursery rhymes and songs and eighteenth-century comic poems.” /> </div>
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Michael L. Printz Award. Michael L. Printz (1937 - 1996) worked at Topeka West High School for 25 years where he was the head librarian and implemented many innovative programs for the students. Among the programs he founded or co-founded are Interim Adventure, a program that allowed students to travel, an oral history program, and an author in residence program, which brought authors and students together for a two day workshop. Printz was also an active member of YALSA.

David H. Clift Scholarship. David H. Clift served as the Executive Director of ALA from 1952 to 1972. Prior to his library career, Clift served in WWII, where he was assigned to the Office of Strategic Services Interdepartmental Committee on Foreign Acquisitions. He went to Yale University as Associate Librarian in 1945. While an Associate Professor at Yale he traveled in Europe to obtain books for The Library of Congress.

James Bennett Childs Award. James Bennett Childs (1896 - 1977) worked at the Library of Congress for over 50 years, and was the author of numerous books and articles. He was recognized as the principal authority in the field of government publications, not only in the United States but throughout the world. Childs' contributions to the acquisitions and organization of government documents at the Library of Congress enabled it to become one of the world's greatest repositories of official publications.

Hugh C. Atkinson Memorial Award. Hugh C. Atkinson (1933 - 1986) was an American librarian known for his innovations in library automation and cooperation. He served as director of libraries at Ohio State University from 1971 to 1976 and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1976 to 1986. In 1967, Atkinson moved to Ohio State University where he served as head of public services (1967-71), and then as director of libraries (1971-76).

Mary V. Gaver Scholarship. Mary Virginia Gaver (1906 - 1991) served as the president of ALA from 1966 to 1967. Gaver also served as the president of the American Association of School Librarians from 1959 to 1960 and the New Jersey School Library Association from 1954 to 1955. She was also an educator of librarians at several universities. Her longest tenure was at Rutgers University, where she taught from 1954 to 1971.

Justin Winsor Prize for Library History Essay. Justin Winsor (1831 - 1897) began his library career in 1866, when he was appointed a trustee of the Boston Public Library. Previously, Winsor had been a freelance writer, but soon he became the superintendent of the library, a job he held until 1877. Winsor became a librarian of Harvard University that year, where, in combination with his years in Boston, he came to be regarded as a leading figure in the library profession. In 1876 Winsor helped to found ALA

The Amelia Bloomer Book List. Amelia Jenks Bloomer (1818 - 1894) was a social reformer, women's suffrage activist, writer, and publisher. Remembered most for her contribution to women's clothing styles, she was a prominent women's rights advocate during the nineteenth century. Bloomer's husband, Dexter Bloomer, published the newspaper the Seneca Falls County Courier, which Bloomer wrote for, despite having little formal education. She struck out on her own with The Lily, a temperance newspaper, in 1849.

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Chris Lewis writes: “For my generation and generations before us, the public library was an equalizing force in every town, helping anyone move toward the American dream. A ruling in Hachette v. Internet Archive has just thrown that promise of equality into doubt by limiting libraries’ access to controlled digital lending (CDL). On September 4, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals [affirmed a lower court’s decision that CDL through the National Emergency Library was not fair use.] If the courts won’t recognize CDL-based library lending as fair use, then the next step falls to Congress.”

MIT Technology Review, Sept. 11
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“Hispanic Heritage Month honors the contributions and influence of Hispanic and Latine Americans to the history, culture, and achievements of the United States, and is celebrated from September 15 to October 15 annually. Check out these recent releases from authors of Hispanic or Latine background!”

Seattle Public Library, September
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Cara S. Bertram writes: “The year 2023 was another record-breaker for book bans. ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) documented 1,247 attempts to censor library books and other materials—most of which were works by or about people of color, members of the LGBTQ community, or both. But attempts to limit access to literature in the US are as old as our nation itself. American Libraries travels through time to outline our country’s history of censorship—and the library workers, authors, and advocates who have defended the right to read.”

American Libraries feature, Sept./Oct.
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The Library of Congress’s 2024 Literacy Awards recognized four top honorees on September 8, International Literacy Day: The LaundryCares Foundation, an Illinois-based nonprofit that installs learning spaces in laundromats across the country; New Zealand’s Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori Inc., a network of schools working to preserve and promote the Māori language; We Need Diverse Books of Bethesda, Maryland, which helps authors and illustrators with diverse backgrounds get their books published; and the Alsama Project in Beirut, Lebanon, which educates Syrian refugee youth frequently left out of Lebanese schools.

Library of Congress Timeless, Sept. 9
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Michael Rodriguez writes: “In the first half of 2024, institutions of higher education in the United States closed permanently at the rate of one per week, according to one estimate, with little sign of slowing down. Where the author lives in Pennsylvania, eight colleges have closed, consolidated, or announced plans to do so since January 2024 alone. These closures directly impact small private colleges and the communities built around them, but closures also ripple throughout the academy, disbanding libraries and archives and endangering access to and preservation of the scholarly record.”

The Scholarly Kitchen, Sept. 5
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Daniel M. Rothschild writes: “Discussions of reading habits typically break down, at least in the first instance, along the binary of fiction and nonfiction. If you ask most people what they read, they’ll give you some version of ‘mostly fiction’ or ‘mostly nonfiction.’ I write today in praise of a third genre that few self-respecting intellectuals admit to reading regularly, though many do: the reference book. Real reference books are unpretentious, which is part of their charm. You as the reader can make them comply with the demands of your knowledge, intellect, and time constraints, not vice versa.”

Discourse, Aug. 30
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Kurt Schlosser writes: “All tech-enabled systems and services are back up and running at Seattle Public Library this week, roughly three months after a ransomware attack impaired services at the institution and its 27 branches across the city. Cybersecurity experts are praising some of the steps taken to protect against future attacks. The breach over Memorial Day weekend affected access to staff and public computers, online catalog and loaning systems, ebooks and e-audiobooks, in-building WiFi, the library website, and more.” The library said it will issue a public report later this year but it has revealed some steps taken to prevent future attacks.

GeekWire, Sept. 5; Seattle Public Library, Sept. 3

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