By Kate Hill
Staff Writer
This fall, The New Woodstock Free Library was named the winner of the prestigious Central New York Library Resources Council (CLRC) Library of the Year award.
The CLRC is one of nine New York State library councils dedicated to helping libraries, museums and archives with resource sharing, professional development and more.
According to the CLRC, the distinction of Library of the Year is “awarded [annually] to the library that exemplifies excellence across a variety of markers.”
The award category is open to any academic, public, school, or special library in Herkimer, Oneida, Onondaga and Madison County.
Nominations for both the Library of the Year award and the Library Staff All-Star award are solicited each year from library patrons and staff. A panel of judges, who work and reside outside of the CLRC service area, selects the winners.
The 2019 award-winners were honored at CLRC’s annual conference and membership meeting on Oct. 10 at the Rome MVCC campus.
“We are delighted to receive this honor on behalf of our library community of volunteers, staff, trustees and supporters who provide outstanding service to the public every day,” said New Woodstock Free Library Director Norm Parry. “A quarter century ago the library adopted the slogan ‘The Growing Place.’ Since then we have expanded our library facility, kept our technology up to date and provided personalized service to our patrons. This acknowledgement of our library is [a] strong endorsement of our efforts to provide a library where everyone can grow and fulfill their dreams.”
For more than 75 years, the library has enriched the community through its exhibits, events and programming.
“New Woodstock is a full service, customer-focused modern library serving a diverse rural demographic, so that residents don’t have to give up big city culture for the charm of country life,” Parry said in a press release.
The library has curated nearly 200 distinct exhibits, including shows by the Cazenovia Watercolor Society, agriculture themed displays, annual student art shows, and programs addressing social and public information topics.
This past year, the library received a $35,000 grant to replace its ceilings. It also continued its “virtual gallery” art digitization project involving works by local artists; presented seven major art and information exhibits; and supported an English as a second language tutoring program.
Recently, the library partnered with the neighboring town of Georgetown to launch an initiative aimed at delivering library resources to underserved and un-served rural populations.
The project enables Georgetown residents to borrow books from their town hall, and to access the internet on a dedicated computer inside the building.
“Recognizing that many rural communities in New York State are un-served or underserved by a public library, New Woodstock undertook a demonstration project to see if partnerships between towns and libraries could provide more convenient, closer to home library services and help close the digital divide between rural and non-rural communities,” Parry said.
This unique partnership was particularly impressive to the CLRC judges, who, according to a press release, view the initiative as “a model for improving rural access to libraries across the state.”
The project was funded by a literacy grant from the Mid York Library System.
Parry anticipates that the CLRC award will facilitate the library’s efforts to secure additional grants in the future.
“Certainly this honor will reflect favorably on the library’s ability to deliver on our partnerships with other agencies and support our fundamental mission of being good stewards of the public interest, with sustainable funding initiatives and grant program opportunities,” he said. “Granting agencies want to be sure the organizations they support are ready and able to carry out innovative activities and maintain the organization’s infrastructure. This award will provide additional evidence that we are potentially strong candidates for the kind of assistance that benefits the whole community.”
The New Woodstock Free Library is located at 2106 Main St. (Route 13), New Woodstock. To learn more, call 315-662-3134 or visit newwoodstocklibrary.org.
For more information on the CLRC Library Awards nomination process, visit clrc.org/awards/.
