PRESS RELEASES
September 13, 2007
TOWN OF TONAWANDA COUPLE AWARDED OUTSTANDING LIBRARY ADVOCATE AWARD
Buffalo, New York— David and Ruth Dietz, Town of Tonawanda have been awarded the first annual Western New York Library Resources Council (WNYLRC) Outstanding Library Advocate Award for their tireless work on behalf of the Town of Tonawanda Public Library. Joel Cohen, Associate Vice President for Library and Information Technologies at Canisius College and President of the WNYLRC Board of Trustees (2007), will present the award to Mr. and Mrs. Dietz at WNYLRC’s Annual Meeting of the Membership on October 3, 2007.
Dr. Dietz is the Chair of the Town of Tonawanda Library Board of Trustees and has spearheaded numerous projects designed to improve public library service for residents in the Town of Tonawanda. These included conducting a thorough review of the Town of Tonawanda Public Library’s Charter, developing a task force “Advisory Committee for the Future of the Town of Tonawanda Public Library,” appointing a consultant to assess community interest in a new library, creating focus groups to assess community support for a new library, and presenting the findings to the media. Dr. Dietz advocates on behalf of the Town of Tonawanda Public Library at a variety of meetings. Ruth Dietz has conducted story hours at the Sheridan-Parkside Library, has been active in the Ken-Ton Friends of the Library for many years, and was instrumental in organizing the first Friends of the Library annual book sale. She is still the driving force behind this event and tens of thousands of dollars have been raised to support the Town of Tonawanda Public Library.
WNYLRC will award four awards annually to recognize excellence in librarianship and service to patrons as well as one award to recognize individuals or an organization outside the library profession who have advocated for increased funding for libraries or assisted in the collaboration between libraries and locals businesses or organizations. 2007 is the first year for these awards.
The Western New York Library Resources Council (WNYLRC) is a not-for-profit consortium serving 82 member libraries and library systems in Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Erie, Genesee, Niagara and Orleans counties. WNYLRC provides easy access to library holdings located in Western New York through WNYLibraries.org, digitized historical content on WNYlegacy.org, and 24/7 reference service through AskUS247.org.
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