The 2015 JCD PR Winners Are ...

The 2015 John Cotton Dana Library Public Relations Awards winners have been named! This year there were 77 entries submitted online; judges had to narrow that down to eight winners. Once again, EBSCO sponsored the contest and reception, and The H.W. Wilson Foundation generously donated the prize money for the awards, the richest PR contest in North America.

And the 2015 JCD winners are....

The Contra Costa County (Calif.) Library won for War Ink, an exhibit and forum that helps to bridge the divide between the veteran and civilian communities.

The Columbus State Library (Ohio) won for its Exhibit the Right to Read campaign, held during Banned Books Week.

The Durham County (N.C.) Library won for a campaign that engaged both current and new audiences, bringing the community together. 

The Flathead County (Mont.) Libraries won for a complete rebranding effort that changed not only its culture, but also its name, to ImagineIF Libraries.

A group of 12 Illinois libraries and library organizations teamed up to win for the Soon to Be Famous Illinois Author project, in which it solicited nominations of self-published books, publicized them for the authors, and hyped a winner.

The Loyola University Chicago Libraries won for Celebrate Gorey, a programming and outreach campaign on the Chicago writer and artist Edward Gorey, which raised endowment funds and awareness of special collections. 

The University of Maryland Libraries won for Thinking Big, a data-driven communications campaign to increase awareness of UBorrow, an interlibrary loan service that became available to students, faculty, and staff as a result of the university joining the Big Ten.

The Hesburgh Library at the University of Notre Dame (Ind.) used the 50th anniversary of its iconic building as a strategic opportunity to build awareness of the library and its services, further establishing them as vital to the school’s landscape. 

The eight winners will receive their $10,000 awards at a reception at ALA’s annual conference, which will be held in San Francisco next week. You can view the winning entries from a link on the contest’s homepage. 

Special thanks to The H.W. Wilson Foundation for donating $80,000 again this year to keep this prestigious contest alive! 

Watch for photos of the event to be shared here on The M Word after the ceremony!