Melanie Townsend Diggs Wins Lemony Snicket Prize
In recognition of her efforts to aid the citizens of Baltimore during the 2015 protests that followed the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody, Melanie Townsend Diggs, Pennsylvania Avenue Branch manager of Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library is the recipient of the 2016 Lemony Snicket Prize for Noble Librarians Faced with Adversity, announced yesterday in a press release.
Ms. Diggs will receive $10,000, a certificate, and an “object selected from the personal collection of author Daniel Handler,” aka Lemony Snicket.
In the ALA press release Diggs says :
“in some ways it was a typical day, with people coming and going. But you also would have seen customers and community leaders coming in and thanking us for being open. A woman bringing us flowers, pastries. The media coming in to charge up their batteries, use the restrooms. You would have seen a young man coming in to fill out a job application online, and then coming back the next day to say that he had an interview scheduled for May 5. All of these things happened. If we had not opened our doors, we would have missed all those things.”
Handler adds, “During troubled times, we need open minds. Open minds need open books. Open books require an open library, and the work of Melanie Townsend Diggs provided such a necessary and hopeful beacon.”
Last year’s prize winner, Scott Bonner, was honored for keeping the library in Ferguson, Missouri open during protests there, and the 2014 winner Laurence Copel, was honored for her work in the Lower Ninth Ward Street Library of New Orleans.