Love Your Librarian

On a typical day, librarians toil in anonymity. They will take a collective bow if the library they serve wins special recognition, but the individual spotlight is not something a librarian normally seeks.

So imagine Claire Dannenbaum’s surprise when the American Library Association reached out to inform her late last year that she was one of 10 recipients of the 2024 “I Love My Librarian” award, a highly prestigious honor in the library community given as part of the ALA’s annual Library Learning Experience Conference Jan. 19 through 22 in Baltimore, Maryland. The “I Love My Librarian” honors has been handed out by the ALA since 2008, and 150 librarians nationally have received the honor.

Dannenbaum, a reference and instruction librarian at Lane Community College, was “shocked and speechless” at news of the award.

“And that’s not common for me,” she says with a laugh. “I was definitely in shock.”

Dannenbaum was nominated by Ce Rosenow, a writing and poetry instructor at LCC, “and apparently she was very successful,” Dannenbaum says of the nomination.

A librarian can wear many hats on a given day, Dannenbaum notes, especially at LCC where four librarians serve a diverse full-time and part-time student body that has varying educational backgrounds and goals.

Dannenbaum, who has been at LCC since 2009 and was appointed full-time to her post in the fall of 2014, says she has three main criteria that she focuses on daily, be it online or in the classroom: Teaching and research (“More or less, everyone is new to research at the community college level,” she points out.); advocating for the library; and being a liaison on behalf of the library with faculty for varied programs within the arts, science, social sciences and culinary areas as well as the health and physical education departments to integrate information literacy concepts into their courses.

She won’t be attending the conference in Baltimore to collect her award. Starting with the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday Jan. 15 and the icy conditions that closed LCC for two days afterward, Dannenbaum says she’s already behind in her work in the early portion of winter term, and travel conditions on the East Coast may not be ideal, either.

Instead, Dannenbaum will be hard at work advocating for the library and mentoring LCC students who need research help. Now more than ever, she emphasizes, strong libraries are needed to enhance critical thinking and help grow democracy.

“Being in the world is being in ideas, and ideas are not neat,” she says. “There’s always multiple sides to every story. A lot of people who are new to research have to learn that.”

Claire Dannenbaum will be on the frontlines of that task.

A Note From the Publisher

Dear Readers,

The last two years have been some of the hardest in Eugene Weekly’s 43 years. There were moments when keeping the paper alive felt uncertain. And yet, here we are — still publishing, still investigating, still showing up every week.

That’s because of you!

Not just because of financial support (though that matters enormously), but because of the emails, notes, conversations, encouragement and ideas you shared along the way. You reminded us why this paper exists and who it’s for.

Listening to readers has always been at the heart of Eugene Weekly. This year, that meant launching our popular weekly Activist Alert column, after many of you told us there was no single, reliable place to find information about rallies, meetings and ways to get involved. You asked. We responded.

We’ve also continued to deepen the coverage that sets Eugene Weekly apart, including our in-depth reporting on local real estate development through Bricks & Mortar — digging into what’s being built, who’s behind it and how those decisions shape our community.

And, of course, we’ve continued to bring you the stories and features many of you depend on: investigations and local government reporting, arts and culture coverage, sudoku and crossword puzzles, Savage Love, and our extensive community events calendar. We feature award-winning stories by University of Oregon student reporters getting real world journalism experience. All free. In print and online.

None of this happens by accident. It happens because readers step up and say: this matters.

As we head into a new year, please consider supporting Eugene Weekly if you’re able. Every dollar helps keep us digging, questioning, celebrating — and yes, occasionally annoying exactly the right people. We consider that a public service.

Thank you for standing with us!