Ten Recipients of the 2025 “I Love My Librarian” Award Announced

From a Joint News Release:

The American Library Association (ALA) is thrilled to announce this year’s ten recipients of the coveted I Love My Librarian Award. Serving communities across the nation, the 2025 honorees are exceptional librarians from academic, public, and school libraries who were nominated by community members for their expertise, dedication, and profound impact on the people in their communities.

“Librarians nationwide make positive impacts on their communities every day, and the inspiring stories from this year’s I Love My Librarian Award recipients prove how transformative their efforts can be to the lives of their patrons,” said ALA President Cindy Hohl. “From Alabama to Alaska, from the Bronx to Maui, the vital services these librarians provide reinforces what we all know: that libraries everywhere are an essential public good, and the people who power them serve to inform, connect, educate, and empower their communities.”

ALA received nearly 1,300 nominations from library users for this year’s award, which demonstrates the breadth of impact of librarians across the country. Nominations focused on librarians’ outstanding service, including expanding access to literacy and library services, outreach within their communities, supporting the needs of the most vulnerable, and more. This year’s award recipients include four academic librarians, three public librarians, and three school librarians.

Honorees will each receive a $5,000 cash prize as well as complimentary registration and a $750 travel stipend to attend ALA’s LibLearnX event in Phoenix. The award ceremony will take place during the LibLearnX welcome reception beginning at 6 p.m. ET on Friday, Jan. 24, 2025, and will stream live on YouTube.

The 2025 honorees are:

Abby Armour

Mukwonago Community Library, Mukwonago, Wisconsin

Under library director Abby Armour’s leadership, the Mukwonago Community Library has undertaken an effort to repatriate items in its Grutzmacher Collection—a collection of about 12,400 Native American items gifted to the library in 1965 by artifact collector Arthur Grutzmacher—to Native American Tribes that have claimed them. Armour worked for years to catalog the collection and guide the library through compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), and she has led her library to become the first public library in Wisconsin, and only third in the U.S., to repatriate Belongings under NAGPRA.

Charlotte Chung

Suncrest Elementary School, Morgantown, West Virginia

Library media specialist Charlotte Chung is engaging reluctant readers and supporting English language learners at Suncrest Elementary School in Morgantown, West Virginia. Chung’s Building Bridges to Literacy project, funded by a $50,000 grant from the West Virginia Public Education Collaborative, aims to develop a library collection and resources specifically geared toward students’ needs and interests to increase their reading motivation, including materials in multiple languages to support the 53 native languages spoken in classrooms throughout the school district.

Missy Creed

The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

At The Ohio State University’s Library for Health Information, consumer health librarian Missy Creed is working in and outside of the library’s walls to get reliable health information into the community’s hands. Each year, Creed participates in dozens of outreach events and health fairs, reaching more than 1,000 individuals to provide trustworthy and easily digestible health information covering a broad spectrum of topics, while also providing free and confidential reference services to patients and the general public.

Jessica Gleason

Wailuku Public Library, Wailuku, Hawaii

In the aftermath of the wildfires that devastated Lāhainā and western Maui, Hawaii, Wailuku Public Library bookmobile librarian Jessica Gleason became a steadying presence for a displaced and healing community. Less than a month after the fires that left the western part of the island without a library, she established services for the affected area, working with shopping centers, hotels, schools, churches, and the local government for the bookmobile to provide books, Wi-Fi internet, programming, and essentials such as meals and clothing to families in need.

Peggy Griffith

The Ferris School, Wilmington, Delaware

Administrative librarian Peggy Griffith is creating opportunities for youth at the Ferris School, a secure treatment facility under the Delaware Department of Services for Children, Youth & Their Families (DSCYF) that provides services for court committed males ages 13 to 18. Griffith has modernized the school’s library by replacing more than 1,000 damaged or outdated materials and integrating the library’s collection into the state’s library catalog, and she helps youth transition back into the community with personalized letters of encouragement, resources for résumé assistance and connecting with a social worker, and their own Delaware public library card.

Candice Hardy

Miles College, Fairfield, Alabama

Once a student, Candice Hardy now directs the Learning Resources Center at Miles College, a Historically Black College in Fairfield, Alabama, where she is guiding students to become engaged and empowered citizens through a wide breadth of programming and events. From a campuswide voter activation day leading up to the 2024 U.S. general election, to hosting an inaugural exhibition of works by local Black artists in a new exhibit space, to hosting movie screenings and author events, Hardy has reinvigorated the library into a hub for campus life.

Analine Johnson

Johnson High School 9thGrade Campus, Laredo, Texas

For two and a half decades, Analine Johnson has been supporting at-risk readers in the United Independent School District in Laredo, Texas, where she now serves as library media specialist at Lyndon B. Johnson High School’s 9thGrade Campus. Johnson has helped raise thousands of dollars to help students from low-income backgrounds purchase books, created a new literacy program to support emerging bilingual students who struggle with learning the English language, and spearheaded the installation of a “Lil Library Box” in the park across from her campus.

Theresa Quiner

Kuskokwim Consortium Library, Bethel, Alaska

In Bethel, Alaska—a city disconnected from the road system and only accessible via plane or boat—Kuskokwim Consortium Library director Theresa Quiner is helping her local community thrive. Beyond the many librarian hats she wears—from director to collection development and cataloging to reference services—Quiner has put in great effort to serve the needs of the rural community and its most vulnerable members, including outreach to shelters and food banks, partnering with the Dolly Parton Imagination Library to increase children’s access to books, and programs that teach camp cooking, canning, and other necessary skills.

Jamar Rahming

Wilmington Institute Free Library, Wilmington, Delaware

In just six years, Wilmington Institute Free Library in Delaware has gone through a transformational rebirth thanks to the efforts of its executive director Jamar Rahming. From establishing partnerships with local barbers to stock bookshelves for children inside barbershops, to hosting “Pitch or Ditch” competitions for minority-owned small businesses, to housing a diaper bank and community closet on its second floor and more, the library under Rahming’s leadership has revitalized the community and has attracted a growing and diverse slate of prolific voices and cultural icons to speak at library programs, including LeVar Burton, Jenifer Lewis, and Dolly Parton.

Nelson Santana

Bronx Community College, Bronx, New York

At the Bronx Community College library, associate professor and collection development librarian Nelson Santana explores and raises awareness of the social and cultural history of Dominican, Caribbean, and Latin American communities while working to build a collection reflective of the student body. Fueled by an interest in the role of libraries and archives in communities of color and how they impact student lives, he has engaged his campus community through a range of grant-funded programming and initiatives, including curating an exhibit showcasing transnational Dominican activism.

Since the award’s inception in 2008, library users have shared more than 24,000 nominations detailing how librarians have gone above and beyond to promote literacy, expand access to technology, and support diversity and inclusion in their communities. Information regarding previous award recipients can be found on the I Love My Librarian website.

Carnegie Corporation of New York has generously sponsored the I Love My Librarian Award since 2008, with additional support from The New York Public Library. The award is administered by ALA.

Direct to Bios of Honorees

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