New York, March 28, 2001 -- Louise Lareau, Branch Librarian at the South Beach Branch Library on Staten Island, has been chosen to receive The New York Public Library's Maher Stern Award for Service Excellence. The award ceremony will take place on Monday, April 2, at 10:00 a.m. at the South Beach Branch located at 21-25 Robin Road, at MacFarland Avenue. In attendance will be Dr. Paul LeClerc, Library President; Mary K. Conwell, Acting Director of The Branch Libraries; Allison Maher Stern, founder of the award; library staff; and preschool children from the community.

Among Louise Lareau's many accomplishments was her success in organizing the move of the South Beach Branch, formerly the second-smallest branch in the NYPL system, to a full-sized branch. At the same time she played a vital role during the branch's transition period by maintaining productive contacts within the community.

Allison Maher Stern, who with her husband Leonard Stern pledged the award for a ten-year period, will present the $1,000 prize to Ms. Lareau. The award, which is used to further enhance the branch's service, honors a librarian and his or her staff for excellence in community service.

"Ms. Lareau deserves this distinguished recognition for all the wonderful things she has done for her branch and its neighborhood," Dr. LeClerc said. "She is a dedicated, highly motivated, and creative individual who inspires her staff to service excellence. She and the South Beach Branch staff are a credit to The New York Public Library."

Mrs. Stern remarked, "Branch libraries play an important role in education and self-improvement. It is a privilege to be able to honor Ms. Lareau and her staff for reaching out to their community and providing quality service and access to the branch's resources."

Louise Lareau's fluency in Spanish and French enables her to reach out to a diverse South Beach community.  She provides Internet training in English and Spanish to children and their parents in the South Beach Branch and at other branches throughout the region.  She has served on the Children's Spanish Committee and has also assisted the Adult Spanish Committee in materials selection for the Staten Island branches.  Well aware of the emerging influx of Russian and Albanian speakers in the community, she provides them with material in their language, and makes the effort to hire Russian-speaking pages.  She is also involved with the development of the branch Life Long Learning collection, which provides easy to read materials to adults just learning to read and to students in English for Speakers of Other Languages classes.

Last summer Ms. Lareau planned, organized and coordinated the Summer Read Aloud for the Staten Island United Cerebral Palsy for Children with Special Needs.  In the absence of a young adult librarian, Louise and her professional staff currently mange to provide quality service to the many teenagers in the community.

Loiuse Lareau has been with The New York Public Library for three and a half years. She started as an entry-level Children's Librarian and worked her way up to Supervising Branch Librarian at the South Beach Branch. She is a graduate of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The New York Public Library operates 85 branches and four research centers in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island. The Library's website is http://www.nypl.org.

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Contact: Debbie Bujosa at 212-704-8658 or at dbujosa@nypl.org
 
 
 

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