Waterville Public Library

Waterville Public Library Director Sarah Sugden Honored

Waterville Public Library’s Director, Sarah Sugden, was among 10 librarians honored on December 2, 1014 with this year’s prestigious Carnegie Corporation of New York/New York Times I Love My Librarian Award for demonstrating the critical role librarians play in transforming lives and communities through education and lifelong learning. Selected from a pool of more than 1,000 nominations, the 10 winning librarians join a  distinguished group of award recipients. Since 2008, only 70 librarians have been so honored. Sarah is the second Mainer to receive the award.  Sarah said she is “creating connections, promoting use of the library and challenging our ideas of what a library can offer to its community." She also said that “Everyone has a story, and every story matters.” 

Sarah responded to questions about her award by saying, “I am so tremendously grateful for this honor,” said Sugden, who spoke Tuesday night from The New York Times building in Manhattan, the site of the awards ceremony. “It is my heart’s delight to work in my beloved hometown at my very favorite library and with an
extraordinary team of colleagues, trustees, volunteers and community partners.

“I am so grateful to the people of Waterville who work with us to make the Waterville Public Library the library our community deserves,” she said.

Sugden, 40, grew up in Waterville and volunteered at the library as a high school student before graduating from Waterville Senior High School and attending Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where she studied history. Sugden worked at  a library in Phoenix, Ariz., then in Cambridge, Mass.,  before her return to Waterville. While  She enjoyed working at the library as a teen, she said she hadn’t considered a career in library science until she was almost through with college.

She told the Morning Sentinel, “In my senior spring, my dad said to me, ‘What are you going to do with your history degree, Sarah?’ and a colleague suggested to me that you could actually go to graduate school and get a graduate degree in library science, school and get a graduate degree in library  science, so that’s what I did and it was the best thing I’ve done,” she said. Lee Folsom, the library’s head of adult services and circulation, summed it up for the press, saying, “She’s a charm. She’s a jewel in Waterville and has done fabulous things for the library.”
                                                                                  
For official press release from the American Library Association, go to www.ilovelibraries.org

The full version of this article is viewable by clicking the view attachment link below. The original article appeared in Page 1 of the Morning Sentinel, a Central Maine newspaper on December 3, 2014. It also appeared online at www.centralmaine.com, and is reprinted with premission. Contact: Rachel Ohm. 612-2368, rohm@centralmaine.com.