Librarian of the Year Award Already Paying Dividends in Cedar Rapids
Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 1/24/2009
- City Council lauds library
- Budget remains a challenge
- Wrangling with FEMA continues
It's been little over a week since the public announcement that Team Cedar Rapids--the management team of the Cedar Rapids Public Library, IA--won Library Journal's Librarian of the Year award for its efforts to recover after a flood devastated the main library.
But that award is already paying dividends. On Thursday, library leaders presented the upcoming budget to the City Councial, recalled interim director Tamara Glise. Council members pointed out that the library had just won the award, "and they just glowed. This is already helping us." Glise spoke last night at an award ceremony during the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting in Denver.
Still, money is tight; Glise could bring only one colleague among the other ten team members to Denver. That colleague, children's service manager Carol Hoke, was proud but practical. "We were doing the job that needed to be done," she said at the award ceremony.
Glise noted that the rebuilding program has a long way to go, and that wrangling with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is ongoing. As of now, FEMA is reluctant to fund a temporary facility when a library is destroyed, deeming libraries not an essential service--an issue raised by Louisiana library leaders after the devastation post-Hurricane Katrina. "We have got to get that changed," Glise said.
