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2009 Zoia Horn Intellectual Freedom Award Winner
The California Library Association's Zoia Horn Intellectual Freedom Award honors California citizens, groups, and organizations that have made significant contributions to intellectual freedom in California. The committee selects nominees based on recent or important lifetime contributions to intellectual freedom. This year's winner was announced at the Awards Ceremony during the 111th Annual California Library Association Conference & Exhibition in Pasadena, CA.
This year's winner, Amanda Sharpe, is a graduate student in the Information Studies Program at UCLA. She earned a B.A. Degree in History from UC Santa Barbara. She spent several years as a school teacher before entering UCLA last fall.
Ms. Sharpe was the recipient of the 2009 Freedom to Read Foundation's Gordon M. Conable Conference Scholarship. The scholarship paid for Ms. Sharpe's attendance at the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago. According to Conable Scholarship chair Candace Morgan, "Amanda's efforts in promoting reading to incarcerated youth was a key reason she was selected over an impressive group of applicants. The right of prisoners to have access to information is an issue that is increasingly prominent in the intellectual freedom community. The severe restriction of reading material to imprisoned young people does them - and society - no favors. We look forward to helping Amanda as she continues to shine light on this area."
While at the ALA Conference, Ms. Sharpe presented a poster session during the Diversity Fair. In addition, she used the conference to launch her new website, www.chil-es.org. The website is dedicated to supporting non-Spanish-speaking children's librarians who serve Spanish-speaking communities. The website provides ideas about community outreach, programming, collection development, and other resources.
Ms. Sharpe's dedication to ensuring that incarcerated youth are afforded intellectual freedoms makes her a worthy recipient of the Zoia Horn Intellectual Freedom Award. Her efforts to train non-Spanish-speaking librarians to better serve their communities are also noteworthy.
Posted on December 10, 2009 9:36 AM | Permalink