2009 Miriam Braverman Prize Winner Announced

Announcement that went to PLGnet-L this morning:

The Progressive Librarians Guild is pleased to announce the winner of the 2009 Miriam Braverman Memorial Prize. Sarah Clark has been awarded the prize for her essay entitled “Marketing the Library? Why Librarians Should Focus on Stewardship and Advocacy.” Ms. Clark is currently enrolled in the Department of Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles in Los Angeles, CA.

Clark’s essay was one of many submitted by library and information science students from colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada. Their papers considered such subjects as the alternative press, U.S. government secrecy, and women’s compositions in digital libraries. Ms. Clark’s essay will be published in the forthcoming issue of Progressive Librarian, the biannual journal published by the Progressive Librarians Guild (PLG). Clark will also receive a $300 stipend to offset the cost of travel to the American Library Association’s annual conference in Chicago, IL, and an award certificate at the PLG annual dinner.

“When researching this paper,” said Clark, “it dawned on me that public libraries are unique precisely because of their public status. The fact that these libraries are publicly owned and funded reflects their democratic foundations, which are too often overlooked.”

The Miriam Braverman Memorial Prize is awarded annually for the best essay written by a student of library and information science on an aspect of the social responsibilities of librarians, libraries or librarianship. The prize is named in honor of Miriam Braverman (1920-2002), an activist librarian who was a longstanding member of the Progressive Librarians Guild and a founder of the American Library Association’s Social Responsibilities Round Table. She was a strong proponent of the social responsibilities perspective within librarianship and an inspiration to younger librarians entering the field.

The Progressive Librarians Guild was founded in 1990 and is committed to supporting activist librarians and monitoring the professional ethics of librarianship from a perspective of social responsibility. For more information, visit the PLG website at http://libr.org/plg.