OSLA Award for Special Achievement

The OSLA Award for Special Achievement honours individuals or organizations outside individual schools or school boards which have provided significant support to teacher-librarians and school library information centre development in Ontario through exceptional projects and activities. Nominees for this award may be an individual person or a group/project. When nominating a group/project, please provide details for a primary contact in the nomination form.

Criteria/Eligibility

This award is given to individuals or organizations which have made a significant impact in the school library field through some of the following endeavours: o Advocacy campaigns. o Local leadership initiatives. o Professional development. o Literacy programs. o Literature programs. o School library research. o Publication of handbooks, guidelines, resource documents, etc.
Teacher-librarians, library coordinators, teacher-librarians’ associations, parent groups and friends of school libraries are eligible for this award.
The nominee must be a member in good standing of OLA/OSLA.

Nomination Procedure

The nominator must be a member in good standing of OLA/OSLA
The nomination form can be found on the OLA website on the award information page
The nominator must provide include evidence to support the nomination, potentially including but not limited to: o An endorsement by at least one OSLA member. o Documented accomplishments of the individual/project/group and a package of appropriate materials to support the nomination.
Nominations will be accepted between: September – November.
The closing date for nominations in any given year is: 1 November.
Once the winner has been chosen, the OSLA President will contact the successful nominator. o The OLA office will contact all unsuccessful nominators.
Unless otherwise arranged, the OSLA President will also contact the successful nominee and request a photo for promotion purposes. o The OLA office will later connect with the nominator and the winner for award presentation logistics.
If desired, nominators may be involved in the award presentation such as creating and/or writing the presentation speech. Please indicate your interest to do so in the nomination form.

Selection Process

The selection committee consists of OSLA Council.
Eligible applications will be assessed according to the criteria as above and any supporting the documentation.
OSLA Council will review all of the applications and assess candidates’ eligibility.
The Council will consider all potential candidates, including those nominated from the membership.
Nominees who are not selected may be re-nominated in subsequent years with the submission of updated documentation.
The presentation of the award is at the discretion of the OSLA Council and is not necessarily presented on an annual basis.

Award Presentation Information

This award is presented at the OLA annual Super Conference at the end of the OSLA Annual General Meeting.
The winner will be notified in advance of the award presentation.
At the presentation, an introductory speech will be delivered outlining the achievements of the award winner.
The recipient will prepare a short acceptance speech.
Guests of award winners are welcome to attend the award presentation, however, must be a registered conference attendees or registered guests. All attendees must have a conference badge to be onsite.
A description of the award winner’s accomplishments is published in the Spring issue of Teaching Librarian and may be promoted through other association publications.