Ward named ALSC Distinguished Service Award winner

Contact: Laura Schulte-Cooper

ALSC Program Officer

312-280-2165

lschulte@ala.org

For Immediate Release

February 13, 2007

Ward named ALSC Distinguished Service Award winner

CHICAGO - Caroline Ward, youth services coordinator, The Ferguson Library, Stamford, Conn., is the 2007 recipient of the Association for Library Service to Children’s (ALSC) Distinguished Service Award. The award honors an individual ALSC member who has made significant contributions to, and had an impact on, library service to children and ALSC.

Ward’s career has taken her from Vermont, where she helped rural libraries foster the very best in children’s services, to Nassau County (N.Y.) where she set high standards for library services, programs, and cooperative activities, to The Ferguson Library, where she currently serves as youth services coordinator. Ward has made a significant difference in each library community she has served.

Ward’s work with ALSC has been exemplary as well: no task is too large or too small for her, and she undertakes them all with an unparalleled cheerfulness. She has served with distinction on countless ALSC committees and task forces, on the board of directors, and as president. In addition, she launched the School-Age Programs and Service Committee and served as chair of the first (Theodor Seuss) Geisel Award Committee, as well as chair of the (John) Newbery Award Committee. She has worked passionately to heighten visibility of the Pura Belpré Award, in collaboration with REFORMA, and spearheaded and chaired the Belpré Endowment Task Force. Ward is also a winner of ALA’s Grolier Foundation Award.

Her dynamism on behalf of ALSC has made a tangible difference, as have her insights into the worlds of libraries and association work; the latter evidenced by the skillful orientation sessions she led for the ALSC Board of Directors in the years following her tenure as president.

Members of the 2007 Distinguished Service Award Committee were: Jean B. Gaffney, chair, Dayton (Ohio) Metro Library; Nell Colburn, Multnomah County Library, Portland, Ore.; Sue McCleaf Nespeca, KidLitPlus Consulting, Youngstown, Ohio; Linda A. Perkins, Berkeley (Calif.) Public Library; and Ellen M. Riordan, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore.