BETHESDA, Maryland (July 24, 2019) - LibraryWorks is pleased to announce the opening of applications for the 2020 Modern Library Awards (MLAs), a review program designed to recognize products and services that help library managers enhance library performance and user experience. Companies may enter their products or services until September 27, 2019.
The MLAs — launched by LibraryWorks five years ago — are a completely group-sourced assessment of products and services by industry vendors, with the librarian readers of LibraryWorks publications serving as the assessment community. The awards will be based on scoring, aggregated on a 1-10 scale. Highest score will be named Product or Service of the Year. In case of a tie, LibraryWorks will recognize two (or more) products as Product or Service of the Year.
The judging process will be done using secure online reviews based on vendor applications. Honorees will be notified by email by November 4, 2019. In January 2020, honorees will receive their recognition branding and will have permission to use this branding on all marketing materials, web sites, event signage, and for other promotional uses.
A special issue of Library Product News covering the high-scoring (6.5 or higher) participants will be released in January, prior to the ALA Mid-Winter Conference and Exhibition. Products or services that do not score above 6.5 will not be published and no list of total applicants will be released.
Submitting an application is easy — applicants will supply a completed form, with a description, image, URL, and company logo. These images and descriptions will be placed on a special private landing page on the LibraryWorks site. The site will only be disclosed to those readers who reply to the judging surveys. The reader/judge will be able to reference this site during the review and scoring process. Judges must complete their judging forms for their review score to "count" when considering the final average score. Incomplete scores will not be counted towards the average.
Judges will be notified of products/services available for review via email. Upon final tabulation, all participating companies will be notified of their scores, and advised on strategies to promote same.
