91´«Ã½

CHICAGO — The 91´«Ã½ (91´«Ã½) is pleased to announce that the School Library Systems Association of New York State is the 2024 winner of the EBSCO Information Services Library Staff Development Award for their proposal, School Library Sustainability. The award consists of $3,500 and a 24k gold-framed citation. It is given to a library organization whose application demonstrates greatest merit for a program of staff development designed to further the goals and objectives of the library organization.

The New York State School Library Systems (SLSA) is a professional organization comprised of the directors of the 40 School Library Systems (SLS) in New York based on the big five cities and Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES), which serve more than 700 school districts. The SLSs serve public and nonpublic school librarians and teachers with a union catalog, professional learning, grants, shared resources, mentoring, and school-based support with curriculum and instruction, collection development, and programming. Their award-winning project is to host a virtual statewide professional workshop to empower school librarians to join the School Library Certification Program (SLCP). The certification process encourages reflective practice, leadership development, peer mentoring, networking, community building, and, most importantly, sustainable school library programs across New York State.

Their proposal addresses two needs: increasing the impact of school librarians on student achievement by increasing the number of sustainable school library programs. This project matches SLSA's mission to "To strengthen, support and advocate for our members as they foster quality school library programs." Helping school library programs become sustainable will strengthen community support for libraries despite retirements or staff changes. The target group for this project is any interested librarian in New York State. Still, encouragement will be given by SLSA Directors to those new to the profession as they have the most years of service to students ahead of them.

The EBSCO Information Services Library Staff Development Award is sponsored by EBSCO Information Services. EBSCO is a leading provider of research databases, e-journal and e-package subscription management, book collection development and acquisition management, and a major provider of library technology, e-books and clinical decision solutions for universities, colleges, hospitals, corporations, government, K12 schools and public libraries worldwide.