Northwest Librarians Win Award at State Conference

by Sarah Smith

Senatobia, MS (10/23/2024) — Northwest's Libraries and Learning Resource Center received the "Best Effort by an Academic Library to Publicize Library Services or Program Around a Single Theme or Event" award on Thursday, Oct. 10 at the annual Mississippi Library Association's Conference in Natchez.

Instructional librarians, Victoria Penny and Courtney Hicks, won this award for their efforts on the summer reading challenge "Ranger Reading Road Trip." This event was open all summer to anyone in the community, staff, or students who wanted to join in on the fun of reading through the summer as if they were on a journey.

"Courtney and Victoria worked tirelessly on the development and promotion of the project," said Dr. Melissa Wright, director of Learning Resources. "Courtney accepted the award on behalf of her and Victoria."

This program encouraged patrons to read books from specific destinations such as the beach, a city, the woods, another country, another time, another world, set in Mississippi, books that became movies, books published in 2024 or any books on a bucket list destination of the readers.

This program had over 50 participants that included faculty, staff, students and community members. All together, these participants completed a total of over 300 books. Penny and Hicks said that they loved getting the chance to read everyone's reviews, and they feel that this helps support the mission of the college of both supporting current students and also the community.

"For the 2024 challenge, there were 10 categories ('destinations') that participants could read in to win prizes," said Penny. "There were over 50 individuals who signed up, consisting of college faculty, staff, students, and community members. Participants had three months to submit reads in all categories. Librarians relished reading participant reviews and seeing what books they chose to fit each of the categories."

But this isn't the end for the reading challenges--they will host another during the Christmas break, then another in the summer.

To learn more about Northwest Libraries and all the events they have coming up, please visit https://www.northwestms.edu/l/current-students/library.

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