Canton Library Nabs First Time National Award

The Canton Public Library is receiving recognition after topping nearly 100 libraries from all across the country to receive the first-ever LibraryAware Community Award. 

The award is given to the library the best emphasizes engagement with the community and demonstrates its ability to make the community aware of library programs and resources. It is sponsored by Library Journal and funded by LibraryAware - a product by EBSCO Publishing, 

"We were very, very excited about it," Community Relations Director Laurie Golden said. "There's a lot of libraries all over the country that are bigger than us, that probably have better name recognition and that are well known in the industry for doing really great things. For us to beat out some of those types of libraries was great."

The Canton Public Library serves more than 90,000 township residents and boasts more than 84,000 library card holders. It has about 2,000 visitors every day, according to Golden.

Library Journal highlighted the library's 1,086 programs in 2012 that were attended by about 35,000 people. 

Golden said the interesting thing was that of the three finalists for the award, Canton also had the lowest per capita budget.

"We felt that was a really good indication that we are doing a good job with the monies that we do have," she said.

With the award, the library will receive the grand prize of $10,000. 

"We have several initiatives we've been talking about here that we haven't been able to do because we didn't have the funding to get them off the ground," Golden said. "So it's possible we could use the money to get something like that going. Or, we've been in such a budget crunch here the last four or five years, that there are plenty of things we could do with $10,000."

The Canton Public Library will hold a celebration, during which it will receive its LibraryAware Community Award plaque and grand prize on May 10. The public will be welcome to attend the event. 

The other two finalists for the award were the Skoki Public Library in Illinois and the Hartford Public Library in Connecticut.