For immediate release | January 17, 2020

Ten Projects Vie for $1,000 at Awesome Libraries Chapter’s Midwinter Pitch Event

91´«Ã½

Ten finalists have been selected for the ’s live-pitch event at the 2020 91´«Ã½ . The will take place Saturday, January 25th, from 5:00 – 6:30pm in the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Room 201 - ABC.

91´«Ã½ Midwinter Meeting attendees are invited to join the live pitch event to cheer on creative, unique, and moonshot library projects that just need a little funding to get off the ground!

The event’s finalists include:

  • Emily Achler -
  • Christina Bartson - Connective Fibers
  • Kelly Clark -
  • Joanne Grüne-Yanoff -
  • Jamie Joyce -
  • Bob Kuntz and Jennifer Bishop -
  • Samantha Marker - Samuel M. Ridgeway Middle School ELL
  • Janet Ohles -
  • Ashley Sexton, Public Domain
  • Casey Valencia,

Presenters will share how they plan to help their communities and change the world through projects that address women-led sustainability education, reducing barriers to technology access and skill building for people with disabilities, public arts education and access, activism workshops, identifying disinformation about climate change, enhancing the reader’s experience through beautiful technology, and other inspiring activities. The audience will select the winning project and the winner will leave with $1,000 to help implement their project.

The believes that strong libraries create better educated citizens and communities with stronger social ties. The chapter was created by a small working group of passionate librarians who wanted to provide a catalyst for prototyping both technical and non-technical library innovations that embody the principles of diversity, inclusivity, creativity, and risk-taking.

The is a global community advancing the interest of awesome in the universe, $1,000 at a time. Each fully autonomous chapter supports awesome projects through micro-grants. These micro-grants, $1,000 or the local equivalent, come out of pockets of the chapter's "trustees" and are given on a no-strings-attached basis to people and groups working on awesome projects.

Contact:

Miguel Figueroa

Center for the Future of Libraries

91´«Ã½

mfigueroa@ala.org