The Joseph F. Shubert Library Excellence Award
The New York State Regents Advisory Council on Libraries, Friends of the New York State Library
Information | 2011 Recipients | Previous Award Recipients || 2012 Award Committee |
The Joseph F. Shubert Library Excellence Award is given annually to recognize the achievements of small, medium and large libraries and library consortia in New York State. Named after the late Joseph F. Shubert, former State Librarian, the Award honors libraries or library consortia that have taken significant steps within the past two years to improve the quality of library service to users.
The New York State Regents Advisory Council is pleased to sponsor the Joseph F. Shubert Library Excellence Award. The award includes a gift of $1,000 supplied by the Friends of the New York State Library. Other notable projects may also be recognized and honored for their achievements.
2011 Award
The 2011 Joseph F. Shubert Library Excellence Award has been awarded to The New York Public Library (NYPL) for their project entitled Homework NYC. This award-winning project provides homework help with an interactive Dial-A-Teacher App. The project was funded by a three-year federal National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and was headed by Shauntee Burns, Outreach Specialist. Ms. Burns worked closely with youth services staff in NYPL, Brooklyn and Queens libraries, as well as the New York City Department of Education, to produce a high-quality web presence for students, teachers and parents.
Four nights a week, the online program connects students and teachers in real time through a secure digital whiteboard. A student types his/her question, uses a mouse or stylus to draw a math problem (for instance) on the screen or imports documents such as a scanned page of homework to the whiteboard. A teacher instantly sees the problem and provides feedback by typing a suggestion, adding to the drawing or pointing the student to other web sites.
Students played a role in the creation of the App, providing librarians with information about their homework needs and practices and made suggestions about how libraries could better support them. Focus groups of teens were held in all five boroughs and students were encouraged to complete online and paper surveys.
The Homework NYC web site provides information for librarians, teachers, parents and students. Information on Homework NYC is also available on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and TeacherTube. Ms. Burns has demonstrated the project at schools, libraries and community centers across New York City.
See their application: .PDF
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Runner-up for the 2011 Shubert Award is the is the Genesee Valley Educational Partnership (BOCES) School Library System. created a regional school library system union catalog -- FiveSystems.org -- for the five school library systems of the greater Rochester area. The 5 Systems site was developed by the School Library System of the Genesee Valley Educational Partnership in 2010 in collaboration with the other four school library systems and the Rochester Regional Library Council. Local development and open source software allowed the five systems to provide a regional catalog to support resource sharing while at the same time lowering costs.
This new regional school library union catalog holds about four million records from some 356 school libraries in the greater Rochester region, facilitating 16,763 point-to-point interlibrary loans annually. The new interface is user-friendly for students and teachers as well as librarians with easy navigation and simplified searching.
Members of the Regents Advisory Council on Libraries 2011 Shubert Award Committee are Sara Kelly Johns, Chair; Louise Sherby and Mary Muller. The Committee was uniformly enthusiastic in its decision to honor The New York Public Library’s submission as an excellent example of the “spirit of the Shubert award.”
The awards were officially presented in November at the 2011 New York Library Association Conference in Saratoga Springs. As the 2011 Shubert Award winner, The New York Public Library received $1,000, which is graciously donated by the Friends of the New York State Library. As the 2011 Shubert Award runner-up, The Genesee Valley Educational Partnership received a plaque.
2011 Awards Press Release .PDF
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Previous Award Recipients
[Click on the links below to view their applications for the Award. Some pages also have links to more information about the project.]
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2007 |
Story Quilt, a "one-of-a-kind literary, social history project of the Galway Public Library...."
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