We've been all over the place!

Last month, while in Chicago for the ALA (American Library Association) Annual Conference, it was extremely exciting (and very cool) to see copies of Library Journal's 2009 Design Issue (that's US on the cover!) on display throughout the convention floor!

July was a bit of a "WOW" month for Darien Library and we are very happy to share this news with you, our members...the most important part of the Darien Library equation!

First, I'll share the latest news - announced last week, Darien Library has been selected as a Green Building of America Award-winning project and will be featured in the upcoming special Real Estate & Construction Review - Northeast Green Success Stories edition. Darien Library project (submitted by A.P Construction Company) was one of more than 2,500 nominated projects. To read more, click on the attachment at the bottom of this article.

Other big news for us was the release of the Hennen’s American Public Library Rankings (HAPLR) Index rankings  For the 9th consecutive year, Darien Library has been ranked as one of the Top Ten Libraries in its population category, making it one of the Top 100 Libraries in the United States. Click here to learn more.

Darien Library also recently won the top award from the Connecticut Green Building Council (CTGBC) for Institutional/Public Building. The CTGBC Awards are for current work that has been completed, ideally in Connecticut, but not limited to that if the design firm is from Connecticut. Darien Library, submitted by Peter Gisolfi Associates, won the award for Most Intriguing institution. The Library is projected to be the first LEED Gold certified library in New England based on the selection of its site, water efficiency, energy use and atmosphere, use of materials, and indoor environmental quality. It was also awarded points for the building’s innovation. For more details, click here.

...AND last, but not least, though we told you back in March about our own John Blyberg being the 2009 recipient of the LITA/Brett Butler Entrepreneurship Award for his development of the Social OPAC application suite, the award ceremony took place last month at the ALA conference.  The LITA/Brett Butler Entrepreneurship Award, established in 2004, is given to recognize exemplary entrepreneurship by providing an innovative product or service designed to meet the needs of the library world through the skillful and practical application of information technology. Social OPAC (http://thesocialopac.net), also known as SOPAC (for Social Online Public Access Catalog), is a suite of open source software (OSS) tools that brings the power of social computing and Web 2.0 to library catalogs. To read more, please click here.

We share with you our pride. We share with you our gratitude. Thank you, Darien for being such strong supporters of your award-winning Darien Library!