Winner of Maine Library Excellence Award 2005
The Maine Library Excellence Award honors Maine public libraries that most strongly demonstrate outstanding services and programs. South Portland Public Library was the winner for 2005, honored at the Maine Libraries Conference on October 24.
South Portland Public Library
Marian Peterson, director of the South Portland Public Library, accepts the 2005 Maine Library Excellence Award. The library received the award for its Adult
Summer Reading Program.
Participants had eight weeks to read six fiction or nonfiction books and audiobooks about any subject. Readers were encouraged to participate through incentives such as weekly drawings for gift certificate prizes and a grand prize gift certificate at the Maine Mall. The reading program, begun in 2002, has doubled in size since it began and has been adapted by the Baxter Memorial Library in Gorham and Portland Public Library. In 2005 over 100 South Portland adults signed up and about 50% completed the program.
Many adults in the program confessed to being readers as children but had given up the habit while going to college and rearing families. South Portland’s program got them back into reading, and the joy of reading for pleasure.
Other applicants for the 2005 awards program
- Auburn Public Library - First Teenior Series Program
- McArthur Public Library, Biddeford - BBYA Discussion Group
- Curtis Memorial Library, Brunswick - Cornerstones of Science
- Scarborough Public Library - A Very Special Reading Group
