The Gale Group Financial Development Award recipient named
Contact: Cheryl Malden
312-280-3247
For Immediate Release
April 17, 2002
The Gale Group Financial Development Award recipient named
The Haines Brough Public Library, Haines, Alaska, is the 2002 recipient of the Gale Group Financial Development Award presented by the American Library Association (ALA).
The award, $2,500 and a citation donated by the Gale Group, is presented to a library organization that exhibited meritorious achievement in carrying out a library financial development project to secure new funding resources for a public or academic library.
The Haines Brough Public Library succeeded in raising $2.3 million to build a new public library/community facility and to renovate the current library into municipal offices.
The campaign was a creative and challenging multi-year process that ultimately exceeded its goal. Fundraising events included an auction; a yearly bike-a-thon; a New Year's Eve gourmet dinner; a concert by nationally renowned singer/songwriter, Livingston Taylor; and a "Daffodil Days" sale of flowers donated by a local gardener. Additionally, strong local support resulted in the overwhelming (68 percent) passage of a revenue bond measure for the building.
Haines is a geographically remote Alaskan community encompassing 2,620 square miles stretching from the Canadian border to the southern end of the Inside Passage. With only one public library serving a demographically diverse community, the new library project served as a unifying force in a town impacted by an economic downturn.
"The award jury was impressed with the total ownership the community took in the campaign and the impact that it had in bringing the community together," said Chair Luis Herrera. "This is the type of fundraising initiative that can hopefully be replicated in other communities with similar success."
The Gale Award will be presented Tuesday, June 18, at the ALA Awards Reception during the association's Annual Conference in Atlanta.
