Library staff, programs recognized locally, statewide and nationally
BROWARD COUNTY, FL – Under the leadership of Broward County Library Director Kelvin Watson, Florida Library Association’s 2019 Librarian of the Year, Broward County Library (BCL) and its programs and staff recently earned local, statewide and national recognition, including being named the 2020 Library of the Year by the Florida Library Association (FLA).
The awards and honors recognize innovative library initiatives that expanded library services in Broward County to “Air, Land and Sea,” increased services to new residents of Broward, explored current social issues and provided our community with free access to current technology including virtual and augmented reality gear.
FLA’s Library of the Year award “recognizes a Florida library that has demonstrated outstanding service to its community” by providing creative or innovative programming that can be emulated by other libraries and by expanding library services to the community it serves.
BCL was honored for initiatives including “Air, Land and Sea,” which expanded library service points to unusual and unexpected places in the community including buses, parks, businesses and the FLLibrary at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Inter-national Airport.
The award will be presented at FLA’s annual conference, scheduled for October 2020 in Orlando, Florida. BCL was also named FLA’s 2015 Library of the Year.
“Broward County Library is dedicated to providing our customers with the very best library services and resources available,” says Broward County Library Director Kelvin Watson. “We’re honored that our efforts and initiatives have been re-cognized by our peers and we’ll continue striving to reach and engage our community in innovative and meaningful ways.”
Broward County Libraries also received FLA’s Excellence in Marketing and Public Relations Award for the FLLibrary branding/public awareness campaign and the Library Innovation Award for Project Welcome, an initiative that supports English-language learners/newcomers to Broward with targeted library services that support them on their path towards literacy, economic prosperity and a sense of be-longing.
AARLCC Regional Manager Makiba Foster received FLA’s Outstanding Scholarly Contributions Award for her article, “Navi-gating Library Collections, Black Culture, and Current Events,” published in the Summer 2018 issue of Library Trends journal.
Earlier this month, Foster and Library Director Watson were selected by Legacy South Florida magazine as one of South Florida’s “50 Most Influential and Powerful Black Professionals of 2020” and included in their May 2020 “Power” issue.
Nationally, Broward County Library Community Engagement Manager Roslyn Dean was named as one of Library Journal’s 2020 “Movers & Shakers” in the “Digital Developers” category. The Movers & Shakers is an annual list of emerging leaders in the library world selected by the editors of Library Journal.
Dean, who is featured in the May 2020 issue of Library Journal with the other honorees, was recognized for her work as one of Project Welcome’s coordinators and as the creator/project manager for Virtual AARLCC, Broward County Library’s virtual exhibition of 20 important acquisitions from the Special Collections of the African American Research Library and Cultural Center (AARLCC). She will be honored at the yet-unscheduled 2020/2021 American Library Association Annual Conference.
FLLibrary at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
