Jefferson County Public Library Association Library Champion Awards 2012
The Library Champion Award is presented annually by the Jefferson County Public Library Association. The Award recognizes an individual or organization who has made a significant contribution(s) to libraries and/or librarianship in Jefferson County, Alabama.
Elinor and Winfield Burks, Jackie Hambrick, Mary B. Undeutsch, People Affecting Library Success (P.A.L.S.), Daphine Munson, Michael Krawcheck.
Not pictured: Redmont Neighborhood Association/Don Cosper, John Montgomery/Big Communications, and John Paul Taylor/Real Life Poets
Elinor and Winfield Burks
Birmingham Public Library
Elinor and Winfield Burks have taught "guerilla science" for almost 20 years in and around Birmingham. Alongside other community educators, they host the annual Ujima Math and Science Initiative at the Five Points West Branch Library. Each January and February, they visit many of the BPL locations presenting a program called "Peanut Science: the life and science of George Washington Carver.” Audiences of all ages marvel at the multiple uses of peanuts and are excited to take home peanut starter plants and wild flower seeds to carry on the spirit of experimentation. In 2011, the Burks received a grant from the Kresge Foundation in partnership with the Cultural Alliance (with the Friends of BPL serving as fiscal agent). Utilizing these grant funds, the Burks developed a series of after-school programs called The Art of Science, where they presented 54 Art of Science programs in seven different Birmingham Public Library branches to a total of 1,395 participants. Each program began with a science principal and ended with an exercise of artistic expression, either a craft or group project. The programs were well-attended and wildly popular. Library staff received overwhelmingly positive feedback following these programs. Given that the majority of the students attending the Art of Science after-school programs were enrolled in the Birmingham City Schools - with many living below the poverty level –this was an ideal community to introduce children to hands-on scientific experimentation. The Art of Science Programs captured the imagination of young students. The experiments the Burks displayed help remove the stigma associated with the sciences as being too difficult or not a realistic possibility as a career. We are confident that these young, mostly minority students were exposed to science in a unique and exciting way, which will in turn lead many of them to study science further and to even consider a career in the field.
Homewood Public Library
Mrs. Munson works in our Friends Book Store two days a week and has done so for almost eight years. She is dependable and efficient and often comes in to cover when others are unable to work their shifts. Additionally, Ms. Munson works at our Annual Book Sale each year, making sure books are unpacked, priced and put in the correct place prior to opening night. Ms. Munson is a dedicated volunteer and an asset to our Friends group. Ms. Munson is a true Library Champion, though she would never call her-self one. She prefers to work quietly in the background. Ms. Munson has worked two days a week in our Friends Book Store consistently for almost eight years. The Book Store benefits greatly from Ms. Munson’s efficiency and dependability. Additionally, she has been a member of the Friends of the Homewood Public Library since 1987. Our Friends group raises thousands of dollars annually for the library, primarily through the Book Store sales and the Annual Book Sale. Ms. Munson, who lives out-side the city and drives 30 minutes just to volunteer at the Book Store, often covers shifts for other volunteers who are sick or go on vacation. She is knowledgeable about the Book Store and can be counted on to run day-to-day operations without a hitch. In short, Daphine Munson is a dedicated volunteer, a Homewood Public Library supporter, and truly deserving of the Library Champion Award.
The Leeds Jane Culbreth Library
Mary volunteers in the cataloging and circulation departments. She covers and stamps and bags and tags materials after processing. She also checks in material at the circulation desk, shelves books and straightens the shelves with ease and enthusiasm. Mary welcomes our patrons with a bright smile and loving attitude. Her presence at our library lights up our days and those of our patrons as well.
The Leeds library has a relatively small staff and like other small libraries, we open late on certain nights. Having a volunteer like Mary to take up the slack on days when half of your staff is coming in late is no small deal. It is in fact a really big deal to have someone as dependable as regular paid staff to check in those books from the van delivery or to cover a book while someone is waiting for it. In addition, she is a long time citizen of Leeds who acts as an advocate and ambassador for our library throughout the city. We consider her a part of the family.
Hoover Public Library
Michael Krawcheck has served continuously on the Hoover Library Board of Trustees since 1996. He has attended over 200 monthly meetings and special events at the library. He is an advocate not only for the library but for employees as well.
Serving on the board since 1996, Mr. Krawcheck is known as one of the strongest supporters of the library and its employees. Mr. Krawcheck knows all 100 employees by their name and ensures that he says hello to as many as he can each time he visits the library. He will even buy you lunch if you happen to be standing behind him in line at
Coffee-ol-ogy. He attends every single Theatre show and makes sure that there is enough dessert provided to staff after lunch on our annual staff in-service day. He even provides cakes and cookies for every single library board meeting. Mr. Krawcheck is also dedicated to making sure that the members of the library board and the management team know how many times the library is mentioned in the media; he cuts out every article from The Birmingham News and makes copies for each board meetings. Mr. Krawcheck
is also one of the most self-deprecating people who will ever meet and lifts you
up while putting himself down.
Real Life Poets
Birmingham Public Library
Birmingham Public Library has been partnering with Real Life Poets (RLP) to offer free poetry workshops for teenagers since October 2010. Originally three workshops were held in October and November of 2010 and January 2011 to help students prepare for the WORD UP! poetry slam for high school students on April 3, 2011. Because of the strong desire of the young people participating in the workshops, BPL and RLP decided to continue the workshops once a month at the Central Library. RLP has been conducting these workshops without remuneration for well over a year. The number of participants has grown as well as the scope of the activities generated by the workshop. To give an example, RLP and workshop participants worked on producing a variety show which aired on the public access channel earlier this year. A variety of literary, visual, and lively arts were featured as well as interviews. Recently, they have partnered with the library and the Birmingham Education Foundation to extend the workshop offerings to local families as part of the Parent University programs. Real Life Poets is a partner organization for the annual JCLC sponsored Word Up competition as well.
Vestavia Public Library
Every year the PALS group contributes thousands of dollars to help fund programming and materials in the Children’s Department of the Vestavia Hills Library in the Forest. For years their time, dedication and efforts have allowed the Children’s Department to thrive with much needed programming for your community.
The contributions allow the Library to have programming that we would not be able to have based on our budget from the city. Several years ago they even helped contribute materials to the collection. It was around nine years ago when the budget for the Children’s Department was not enough to purchase everything needed to help the children. Over the last four years they have made our Summer Reading program a complete success. Without their help and dedication we would not be the department that we are today.
Clay Public Library
In 2006, Jackie Hambrick was nominated to serve on the City of Clay’s Library Committee. The committee’s mission was to establish a library in our city, and as part of that group, Jackie worked tirelessly to research funding options in order to transform a1905 farmhouse into a modern public library. She spent countless hours creating a complete proposal of all costs associated with opening a library. The committee faced many obstacles, but Jackie never backed down. When some residents were in favor of moving, or even demolishing, the house and using the land for park property, she pushed hard. When members of JCLC said the house was not suitable for a public library, she refused to give up and pushed even harder. Early on during this process, Jackie learned that the original owner of the farmhouse, Jayford Ware, was a lover of books and a strong supporter of education, and she held on to that idea; she knew that this house was meant to become a library. Once funding was secured, Jackie became heavily involved in overseeing the renovations, particularly the interior of the house. She researched the time period in which it was built and made every effort to keep the renovations, even down to the paint color on the walls, as historically accurate as possible. She searched antique shops for light fixtures and furnishings, recruited donations of library furniture and books, washed windows, and donated art work to be displayed in the library. On In 2008, Jackie was elected to the Clay City Council and continued her work to bring a library to the City of Clay. October 1, 2009, her persistence paid off and the Clay Public Library opened its doors for the first time. But Jackie’s work was not done. She organized the library’s grand opening ceremony and convinced Jayford Ware’s great-grandson to travel from out of state to address those in attendance. She is always the first to volunteer for library events—from sorting through hundreds of boxes of donated books for the library’s first book sale, to cleaning up the kitchen after book club meetings, to hiding Easter eggs for our annual Easter egg hunt. She has been seen working in the flower beds at night and even in the rain. I have said that she must dream about the library because she never runs out of ideas. She worked hard to secure approval for the paving of our parking lot and recently put plans into place to purchase a permanent sign in front of the library. Jackie is a true advocate for our library. She never misses an opportunity to tell people about what we are doing, whether it was posting library advertisements around the community or just bragging on the library at the city council meetings. As our council liaison she was supportive of each new endeavor and was persistent in gaining approval and funding to continually improve the library. Her current vision is to create an outdoor reading room complete with landscaping, benches, and tables within a fenced area adjacent to the library. She worked to help us receive a small grant to begin this project, and even though she is no longer serving as a council member, I know she will continue to support the library and be involved in its future.
The importance of her contribution is simple. Clay Public Library would not be what it is today without Jackie’s countless hours of volunteer labor. We have seen circulation and patron visits increase nearly every month since we’ve opened. Thousands of people are now enjoying their own library and taking advantage of all we have to offer because of Jackie’s hard work. When anyone speaks with Jackie, it isn’t long before she beings to talk about the library, and when she does, her passion shines through. She loves Clay and loves our library. We know Clay Public Library is what it is today because of Jackie, and we will forever be grateful for her servant’s heart and “bulldog” persistence in making this dream a reality.
Redmond Neighborhood Association
The Library at Birmingham Botanical Gardens
Over the last ten years the Redmont Neighborhood Association has given The Library at Birmingham Botanical Gardens $36,500.00 to purchase circulating materials. This money, about $5,000.00 a year, has allowed our library to purchase pretty much whatever we wanted/needed. I know it may not seem like much but to a library our size it is a HUGE contribution and makes a huge difference.
Big Communications
Birmingham Public Library
When the Birmingham Public Library set out to change its logo in 2011, Big Communications responded indicating they wanted to help. It would be mid-2012 before they would be given the opportunity and under the leadership of President & CEO John Montgomery, they came through in a "big" way.
With very limited resources available to support an awareness campaign and rebranding initiative for the Birmingham Public Library System, Big Communications organized the system's "Champions for Learning" awareness campaign. Company President John Montgomery states on his web site, “As an agency, we seek opportunities that allow us to give back to Birmingham using the creative abilities of our team.” And give back they did. John connected with Birmingham native Vonetta Flowers who earned her gold medal in bobsledding to serve as the "celebrity" face for a PSA which would run on NBC13 with the start of the Summer Olympics in London. Additionally, John engaged Six Foot Five Productions and other local media to donate their time and talent to help the campaign to life. Further, John and his team at Big Communications encouraged the library's leadership team to go out and make new connections which helped to solidify the success of the campaign. Additionally, John and his team assisted in bringing attention to a young firm which actually designed the new logo for the library. We could not have paid for the amenities Big Communications provided or the leadership they gave us in securing sponsors.