The Fab Four
Staff -- School Library Journal, 5/1/2000
A school library, a pair of public libraries, and one research center--as dissimilar from one another as scrambled eggs and Silly Putty--have at least one thing in common. Last month, during National Library Week (April 9-15), each received the first annual National Award for Library Service presented by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
IMLS Acting Director Beverly Sheppard selected the libraries, which were honored for their community service, from a pool of 75 nominated libraries. Which made the final four? The winners include the B. B. Comer Memorial Library, a small library in Sylacauga, AL, that provides after-school programs to at-risk children and their parents; the Queens Borough Public Library in New York City, serving a mind-boggling two million people; the Simon Wiesenthal Center Library and Archives, in Los Angeles, an international research center on the Holocaust; and the Urie Elementary School Library in Lyman, WY (population 1,800), a school library that not only provides Internet access to its students but to the town's public library as well. By the way, Urie Elementary's innovative media specialist, Kathy Collins-Turner, has given a healthy spin to the word "pig-out." It's the name of the library's weeklong celebration of books and reading.--Rick Margolis
