Pennsylvania Library Association Awards
Each year, the Pennsylvania Library Association recognizes members from our state who have contributed significantly to the library profession and the betterment of libraries. The Awards Committee chooses award recipients based on the nominations from the membership and the award criteria. The awards are presented at the Pennsylvania Library Association Annual Conference or other appropriate venue.
General nomination criteria: Nominators for all awards must be individual members of the Pennsylvania Library Association. With the exception of the Trustee of the Year, Elected Official, and Library of the Year Awards, nominees must also be individual members of the Association. Employees of the Association are not eligible for awards. Candidates will be evaluated only on materials submitted by the nominator(s). Nomination responses should range from 500-1000 words. Submissions for Library of the Year should focus on the previous year's activities, but may include detail through June of the submission year. Multiple nominators may submit independently for the same person, but should submit unique narratives. Alternatively, a single narrative may include statements of support, or quotes, from multiple nominators.
Carolyn W. Field Award
The Youth Services Division sponsors the annual Carolyn W. Field Award (CWF) for the best book for young people by a Pennsylvania author or illustrator. The goal of this award is to recognize outstanding books of authors or illustrators living in Pennsylvania. It is given annually to either an author or an illustrator for a specific book, which may be either fiction or nonfiction.
Submissions open in June and the deadline is the following February. The committee will email publishers when submissions are open and will send out a reminder in November. To get on this list, please contact the current chair. The 2025 Chair is Stephanie Thompson. 2026 Co-Chairs will be Breanna Winters and Fawn Contreras.
The CWF Winner and publisher are invited to attend the CWF luncheon held at the Pennsylvania Library Association (PaLA) annual conference as guests of PaLA. PaLA covers the cost of the CWF luncheon itself but does not cover fees for travel, lodging, or conference attendance. Honor authors/illustrators are also invited to attend and PaLA will cover the luncheon fee but will not cover the cost of honor book publishers. They may attend at their own cost.
Eligibility & Evaluation Criteria:
Eligibility for the award:
- The author or illustrator must have a primary residence in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania at the time of publication of the book.
- The age level of the books considered will be preschool through age 18 and illustrations and writing will be considered depending on the book itself.
- The book may be fiction or nonfiction.
- The book must bear the copyright year prior to the one in which the award is being given. Thus the 2025 award will be given for books published in 2024.
The following criteria for selection of the award winner will be considered:
- Literary or artistic merit will be the primary aspect considered.
- Popular appeal.
- Value of the book as literature.
- Uniqueness of the text and/or illustrations.
- Clarity and style of text.
- Purpose and esthetics value of illustrations.
- Contribution of the design and format.
- Value to intended audience.
- Potential acceptance by intended audience.
- Illustrations may be of any type. However, they should constitute a major portion of the work, be of primary importance, or at least of equal weight as the text.
- The text and/or illustrations must be original in the year of publication.
The Committee will select the Winner and Honor books in the following manner:
- Each member will read all eligible books and nominate five books to move to the short list for discussion and voting.
- The Committee will meet in person and conduct an open discussion about each of the books that have been nominated.
- After discussion, each committee member will vote on the top books, with four points being awarded to each first choice, three points being awarded to each second choice, and two points for each third choice. A book must win by at least two points. If this does not produce a winner, discussion will be reopened and another vote will be taken.
- The Committee will forward the names of the winning book and four honor books to the Chair of the YSD and the PaLA President by April 30th. The selection will remain secret until formally announced.
View list of CWF Award Winners
View list of CWF Honor Books
Best Practices Awards, Humanities in Action Award, and David J. Roberts EXCEL Library Service Award
Founded in 1901, the Pennsylvania Library Association (PaLA) is the state's oldest and most diverse professional library organization serving libraries, library employees, library trustees, and Friends of the Library groups. PaLA continues its campaign to raise public awareness of library services and to inform policymakers of the fundamental role we play in programming across generations. Since 2004, Pennsylvania libraries have been recognized for their exceptional services to youth (birth to 18) with the Best Practices Awards. The Best Practices Committee, a subcommittee of the Youth Services Division of PaLA, will recognize libraries with Best Practices Awards for exemplary programs or displays that took place the previous year.
Winners are selected in 12 categories. Unless otherwise noted, categories span youth of all ages, 0-18 years.
The categories are:
- Infant/Toddler (ages birth-2)
- Preschool (ages 3-5)
- School Age (grades K-5)
- Middle/High School (grades 6-12)
- Design/Display
- Family/Intergenerational
- Partnerships/Outreach
- Shoestring Budget
- Social Emotional Learning
- Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
- Teen Co-Design (grades 6-12)
- Humanities in Action (ages 12-18)
The Humanities in Action Award is presented by the PA Humanities in partnership with PaLA, and was created to spotlight and honor library programs for youth ages 12-18 that effectively use the humanities as a tool for positive youth development. This award, which includes a $500 monetary gift, will go to a program for youth ages 12-18 that builds skills in communication, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, literacy and leadership; guides youth in socio-emotional learning and supports them as they begin to discover who they are, who they want to be, and how to relate to other people; and promotes youth voices and compels youth to take action to create positive change in their communities.
And finally, one library will receive the David J. Roberts EXCEL Library Service Award. This award will recognize the “Best of the Best" from the entire group of best practices winners. The David J. Roberts EXCEL Library Service Award includes a monetary gift of $1,000.
All awards will be presented in at the Carolyne L. Smith Best Practices Awards session at the PaLA Annual Conference. Winners are invited, though not required, to attend the Conference.
View list of Best Practice Award Winner & Honorable Mention