Winners of the 2024 Alexandre Vattemare Award for Creativity in Libraries

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 24, 2024
Media contact: Lacey Torge
Email: lacey@libraryjuicepress.com

 

Jennifer Embree and Neyda Gilman have been selected as the winners of the 2024 Alexandre Vattemare Award for Creativity in Libraries, in recognition of their project, the “Sustainability Hub” at Binghamton University Libraries.

Our award jury had this to say about their entry:

“The Sustainability Hub at Binghamton University Libraries is actively rethinking the role that libraries can play in building sustainable communities, through its space, collections, programs, and collaborations. This project displays creative energy—through new collections, terracycling infrastructure, citizen science kits, and more—to engage with community members both physically and virtually. As libraries and library workers consider what they might do in the face of the climate crisis, the Sustainability Hub demonstrates exciting options that could scale in a range of  ways to different libraries and locations. Beyond providing valuable information for how library communities can adapt and thrive in a climate crisis world, the Sustainability Hub is furnishing space to have conversations and act on new knowledge. The impact  of their efforts are clear through the number of people accessing their online and print resources and attending Sustainability Hub programming, and through the relationships built with campus and community organizations.” More information is here: https://libraryguides.binghamton.edu/c.php?g=1106235&p=8666436

We are also excited to recognize Dana Reijerkerk and kYmberly Keeton with an honorable mention for “Relational Possibilities: A Remix of Aesthetic Forms Through Indigeneity and Blackness.” This project explores how historic collections can be used and made accessible in new ways, in this case highlighting the experiences of African Americans in Philadelphia. Through the use of a variety of digital humanities tools, The Relational Possibilities Project explores how libraries and library workers can  use innovative ways to engage their communities in public history by providing new mechanisms for individuals to see themselves in that history. More information is here: https://scalar.usc.edu/works/2023-fellowship-/index

Given annually by Library Juice Press, the Vattemare Award recognizes contributions in the LIS field that are marked by originality, creative energy, and novel combinations of ideas. The primary consideration in selecting the awardee is their creation of new possibilities for libraries and library workers.

The award consists of $1000 and a framed certificate.