RIVERSIDE COUNTY LIBRARY WINS MORA AWARD

National Award Honors Library’s Promotion of Día de los Niños/Día de los Libros (Children’s Day/Book Day)df

The Riverside County Library is one of two libraries nationwide to be the recipient of this year’s Raúl and Estela Mora Award presented by REFORMA, the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking, in honor of the Riverside County’s efforts to promote Día de los Niños/Día de los Libros (Children’s Day/Book Day), an annual celebration of the power of books and reading.

The award was established by author and poet Pat Mora and her family in honor of their parents to promote the celebration of Día de los Niños/Día de los Libros. The Riverside County Library was honored not only for its annual celebration of this event, but also for the efforts of its staff to assist the California State Library in efforts to encourage libraries across the state to hold celebrations honoring children, books and reading. The Riverside County Library will receive a $1,000 award and a plaque commemorating their efforts at the American Library Association Mid-winter Meeting in Denver in January 2009.

In 2008, based on the recommendations of a panel of experts convened by staff of the Riverside County Library, the California State Library began a consistent push to support and encourage the celebration of Día de los Niños/Día de los Libros in libraries across the state. The staff of the Riverside County Library assisted this effort by presenting training, organizing resources, and building a statewide web site that will launch later this year.

The other library to share the 2008 Mora Award is the Public Library of Charlotte and Meckenberg County in North Carolina.

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RIVERSIDE COUNTY LIBRARY PROJECT WINS NATIONAL PUBLIC RELATIONS AWARD

The Riverside County Library System is one of seven libraries across the United States to receive a 2005 John Cotton Dana Public Relations Award from the Library Administration and Management Association (LAMA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA). This award, which goes to the Library for its Leer Es Triunfar (Reading Is Succeeding) project promoting library use among Latino residents of Riverside County, was announced at the ALA’s Midwinter meeting in Boston on Saturday, January 15.

The ALA press release announcing the award describes Leer Es Triunfar as “an innovative project. . .designed to increase the awareness and use of library services among Latino residents in Riverside County through a series of public programs, community events, celebrity television spots and targeted Spanish-language publications.” It is the first time that the Riverside County Library System has received this award.

Leer Es Triunfar was launched in October 2003 with a Library Services and Technology Act grant from the California State Library. The State Library provided a second year of grant funding for the project for 2004-05 in addition to support from county sources. Beginning in January 2004, Leer Es Triunfar produced a series a television and radio spots, including celebrity endorsements by author Victor Villaseñor, soccer star Mauricio Cienfuegos, filmmaker John Carlos Frey, and others. The project also produced a hip-hop song for radio play as well as a high profile series of library programs including author talks, programs for children, computer classes, art contests, photography exhibits, and a job fair.

“We are extremely proud of this award,” said County Librarian Nancy Johnson. “And we are proud of the Leer Es Triunfar project which has generated a great deal of excitement and use of library services by Latino residents of Riverside County. The project has also provided a way for us to receive feedback from the Latino community as to what library services are most needed,” said Johnson.

Six other libraries won the Dana Award this year: Seattle Public Library, San Diego State University Library, Louisiana Center for the Book at the State Library of Louisiana, Maricopa County Library District (Phoenix), Calgary Public Library (Calgary, Alberta, Canada), and North Suburban Library System (Wheeling, IL). Dozens of libraries across the country submitted applications for the award.

The award will be formally presented at the American Library Association Annual Conference to be held in Chicago in June 2005.