The Broward County Library has been named 2020 Library of the Year by the Florida Library Association.
“Broward County Library is dedicated to providing our customers with the very best library services and resources available,” says Broward County Library Director Kelvin Watson. “We’re honored that our efforts and initiatives have been recognized by our peers and we’ll continue striving to reach and engage our community in innovative and meaningful ways.”
The association said the award “recognizes a Florida library that has demonstrated outstanding service to its community” by providing creative or innovative programming that can be emulated by other libraries and by expanding library services to the community it serves.
Broward’s “Air, Land and Sea,” campaign increased services to new residents of Broward, explored current social issues and provided our community with free access to current technology including virtual and augmented reality gear, Watson said.
The campaign expanded library service points to unusual and unexpected places in the community, including buses, parks, businesses and the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
Other awards the library received from the association was its “Excellence in Marketing and Public Relations Award” for the branding/public awareness campaign of its airport branch, and the “Library Innovation Award” for “Project Welcome,” an initiative that supports English-language learners and newcomers to Broward County.
Makiba Foster, regional manager of Broward’s African American Research Library and Cultural Center, received the association’s “Outstanding Scholarly Contributions” award for her article “Navigating Library Collections, Black Culture, and Current Events,” published In Library Trends Journal.
Earlier this month, Foster and Watson were selected by Legacy South Florida magazine as among of South Florida’s “50 Most Influential and Powerful Black Professionals of 2020.”
Nationally, Broward County Library Community Engagement Manager Roslyn Dean was named one of Library Journal’s 2020s “Movers and Shakers” in the digital developers category.