Head Tale

Each year, our library system gives out four awards to our branches – one for Service, one for Programming, one for Branch Development and one for Branch of the Year which incorporates elements of all three plus more.  Right now, I'm working through nearly 200 quarterly reports (48 branches x 4 reports per year) to come up with a shortlist for this year's nominees. 

As part of the process, I did a tabulation of which branches have won awards since 1992.  I knew my hometown of Indian Head had done okay, being one of only two branches in the whole system, to have won Branch of the Year twice.  What I hadn't realised was how well Indian Head had done across all categories.  Since 1992, we've they've won 6 awards. 

The next branches that come close are our two city branches, Estevan and Weyburn, which have won four awards each (and it's apparently a perennial argument around here whether city branches serving thousands of people should even compete with small towns serving hundreds or villages that literally serve dozens.)  If you take away the two city branches, the next closest communities have won three awards over the same span. 

We haven't decided what to do about Indian Head this year – I've got a pretty big conflict of interest being from there so think I might get a colleague to look over their reports to see if they should be on the shortlist for any of the awards this time around.  (But frankly, they can afford to wait for a year.  Give everybody else a chance to catch up! )

As I said, the awards only go back to 1992 and by that time, I was off at University.  I haven't lived in Indian Head since (though my parents still do.)  Even without the awards to “prove” it, I think Indian Head has always had a strong library with great boards and staff – even as I personally tend to think of Indian Head as more of a sports town in general.  (On the prairies, my theory is that every small town basically falls into one of two categories – you're either a sports town or an arts & culture town.) 

I talked about it in my Statement of Intent to get into FIMS.  Although I laid it on pretty thick (as I tend to do), I honestly think you can draw a pretty straight line from my formative experiences in that small town library to where I am today (er, supervising that small town library while trying not to let my biases show! )