Braverman Prize Winner Announced

Media Release

Contact:

Dr. Alison M. Lewis

Chair, Miriam Braverman Memorial Prize Committee

Progressive Librarians Guild
Phone: 215/895-2765
FAX: 215/895-2070
E-Mail: alewis@drexel.edu

May 1, 2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Miriam Braverman Memorial Prize Winner Announced

(Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA) – The Progressive Librarians Guild is pleased to announce the winner of the 2006 Miriam Braverman Memorial Prize. Joseph Deodato has been awarded the prize for his essay entitled “Becoming Responsible Mediators: The Application of Postmodern Perspectives to Archival Arrangement and Description.” Mr. Deodato is currently enrolled as a graduate student in the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland.

Mr. Deodato’s essay was one of many submitted by library and information science students from colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada. Their papers considered such subjects as the future of digital libraries, the effect of the USA PATRIOT Act on libraries, and the economic impact of public libraries. Mr. Deodato’s essay will be published in the forthcoming issue of Progressive Librarian, the journal published by the Progressive Librarians Guild. He will also receive a $300 stipend for attendance at the 2006 American Library Association’s annual meeting in New Orleans, and an award certificate at the PLG annual dinner.

Honorable mentions go to David Brian Holt, School of Library and Information Science, San Jose State University, for his paper, “Internet Filtering and the Adolescent Gay/Lesbian Patron,” and to Ed Farnsworth, School of Information Science and Technology, Drexel University, for his paper “Intellectual Honesty and Bibliographic Enrichment Notes.”

The Miriam Braverman Memorial Prize is awarded annually for the best essay written by a student of library/information science on an aspect of the social responsibilities of librarians, libraries or librarianship. The prize is named in honor of Miriam Braverman (1920-2002), an activist librarian who was a longstanding member of the Progressive Librarians Guild and a founder of the American Library Association’s Social Responsibilities Round Table. She was a strong proponent of the social responsibilities perspective within librarianship and an inspiration to younger librarians entering the field.

The Progressive Librarians Guild (PLG) was founded in 1990 and is committed to supporting activist librarians and monitoring the professional ethics of librarianship from a perspective of social responsibility. For more information, visit the Guild’s website at: http://libr.org/PLG/

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