2013 John Cotton Dana Award Winners

A scene from the last time the JCD Awards
were given out in Chicago, 2009

As many of you know, the John Cotton Dana Library Public Relations Award is considered the most prestigious in the library marketing / PR field. So it's one that The M Word always covers. The winners for 2013 have just been announced, and they are.... **drumroll please** ......

• The Craighead County Jonesboro (Arkansas) Public Library “Meme Your Library” campaign  resulted in increases in usage both physically and virtually.
• The Hood River County Library (Oregon) district closed due to lack of funding, then won a ballot measure and re-opened a year later, busier than ever.
• The Lawrence (Kansas) Public Library had local artists competitively design a week’s worth of trading cards for Banned Books Week.
• Mid-Continent (Missouri) Public Library developed a comprehensive rebranding campaign around the concept of “access” to help shift the public's perceptions of libraries.
• Richland Library (South Carolina) used customer experience workshops with 400 staff members to “change from the inside out.”
• The Robert E. Kennedy Library at Cal Poly (California) inspired its students and others to declare, “I’m with the Banned,” through virtual outreach and library programming during 2012 Banned Books Week.
• The Santa Clara City (California) Library launched the Project BEST campaign to educate the community about a new food workers law and, in doing so, positioned itself as a resource for job skills development.
• Texas Tech Universities (Texas) used several print and electronic channels to successfully reach its student population through six keywords: Action, Create, Help, Relax, Green, and Connect.

To read more about each 2013 winner, see the press release. Each of the eight winners will be awarded a $10,000 grant from the H.W. Wilson Foundation at a gala ceremony during ALA's Annual Conference in June.