Selection Criteria | Nomination Form | Past Recipients

In January 1993, the Executive Council of the Maine Library Association authorized the Outstanding Librarian Award. The Communications Committee currently oversees this important award. They would love to hear from you if you would like to nominate someone for the MLA Outstanding Librarian Award. 

Selection Criteria

The award honors the career accomplishments to date of a working or retired librarian, from any type of library, who has demonstrated an outstanding record of services to both his/her library and to the library profession.

Anyone may make a nomination. Nominations may be made posthumously. Nominations must include supporting documentation attesting to the individual's development of outstanding services in an area of expertise; involvement in professional library activities; demonstrated leadership in the profession; and encouragement of local support of his/her library. Letters of support from fellow workers, supervisors, trustees, library colleagues, library patrons, community leaders, and/or others who can speak to the nominee's accomplishments are strongly encouraged. The Outstanding Librarian Award will be selected based on the information sent with the nomination form, and not based on any personal knowledge the judges may have of the nominee's qualifications or experience. Please submit all support documentation with the nomination form.

Panel of Judges:

• One person from the MLA Communications Committee
• One person with public library experience
• One person with academic or special library experience

Deadline for Submission:

The award is presented each year at the annual Maine Libraries Conference. Nominations for the 2006 award must be received by May 31st 2006. 

Submit nomination form to:

Holly I. Williams
MLA Communications Committee
50 Mt. Pleasant Rd
Levant ME 04456
holly_i._williams@umit.maine.edu

Past Recipients

The 2004 Outstanding Librarian was J. Gary Nichols from the Maine State Library. The MLA honored Nichols for his thirty-one years of dedication to providing all the people of Maine with free and equal access to the wealth of library resources through his work as Maine State Librarian, as ex-officio member of the Maine Library Association Executive Council, as unstinting advocate for Maine Libraries, as a visionary in the effort to craft an environment of statewide resource sharing through innovative library cooperation and for exceptional dignity, warmth, grace, and good humor exerted on behalf of the profession.

The 2005 winner will be announced at the Maine Libraries Conference in October 2005.