Cause For Celebration: Vibrant District Libraries - Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti Win Peer Recognition

THE

ANN ARBOR NEWS

FOUNDED IN 1835

Laurel R. Champion Ed Petykiewicz Bob Needham

Publisher Editor Opinion Editor

Cause for celebration: vibrant district libraries

Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti win peer recognition

We’ve long believed that the library system in our area is unusually strong. And every now and then, that belief gets reinforced by one sort of recognition or another.

Earlier this month, The Ann Arbor District Library was named one of the top libraries in the country in a survey by the Library Journal. The publication looked at libraries’ transactions per capita, giving star ratings to just 256 of the 7,115 libraries studied.

The AADL was one of 88 libraries nationwide to earn a five-star (top) rating, and one of only 10 in its budget bracket ($10 million to $29.9 million). The only other Michigan library to get a star rating was the Canton Public Library, with three stars.

Meanwhile, the Ypsilanti District Library was recently honored for one of its creative events. The library’s Ypsilanti Songwriting Festival earned the John Cotton Dana Library Public Relations Award, sponsored by the H.W. Wilson Co. through the American Library Association. The festival was aimed to bring nonusers into the library, and judges praised the library’s nontraditional marketing of the event on Web sites like Facebook and MySpace.

As the Internet has become ever more entrenched as a preferred source of information, it might have been easy to envision libraries becoming obsolete. Yet the libraries in our communities have instead found ways to become ever more relevant, and we’re all the richer for it.