Paraprofessional of the Year Nomination Guidelines

Extended postmark deadline: January 18, 2011

Library Journal will honor one support staffer with its 12th annual Paraprofessional of the Year award in its March 1, 2011, issue. The award, sponsored by DEMCO, comes with a $1500 cash prize and a reception to honor the winner at the American Library Association conference in June, the award recognizes the essential role of paraprofessionals, now the largest constituency of library workers, in providing excellent library service. It places special emphasis on the efforts of the winner to further the role of paraprofessionals in the library profession. The winner will be profiled in the March 1 issue of LJ.

Nominating criteria

The criteria for LJ's Paraprofessional of the Year are excellence in performing their job, including contribution(s) enabling the library to best serve its constituents and/or its community (whether town, college/university, school, or corporation), the encouragement of reading and the use of the library's resources, a commitment to free access to information for all, and the candidate's work to build networks, organizations, and/or groups to back excellence in library work and new career paths for support staff, and improved communication and the breaking down of barriers between support staff and the MLS librarians with whom they work. Nominating letters should name the candidate and describe in 500 words or less why the nominee deserves the award. Supporting letters and accompanying material will be considered, but the nominating letter itself will be of prime importance.

Nominations may be emailed to rmiller@mediasourceinc.com.

Nominations sent through regular mail should be addressed to:

Paraprofessional of the Year Award
c/o Library Journal
160 Varick Street, 11th Floor
New York, NY 10013.

Please note: the postmark deadline for all nominations is January 10, 2011.