Nelsons The Prow gets National Award
At the recent 2009 3M Award for Innovation in Libraries, The Prow was awarded 2nd place.
The New Zealand Library Association Inc. (trading as LIANZA) is the professional organisation for the New Zealand library and information services sector, and in conjunction with them 3M sponsor the Award. What the award aims for is “the promotion of excellence and innovation in Library & Information services.”
A good thing I say too as some libraries are starting to struggle with reduced membership numbers. It just makes sense to embrace the digital age and this is a perfect example, and now recongnised by peers as such.
I probably should have mentioned that it isn’t just Nelson’s The Prow, as the The Prow website is a joint collaboration between Nelson, Tasman and Marlborough Public Libraries, Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology Learning Centre and Nelson Provincial Museum.
The purpose of the site is to educate and encourage interest in stories of the region, with what appears to my eyes quite a decent percentage of historical information on board whilst encouraging comments, feedback and user uploaded stories as well.
When browsing the site you can see points / stories in a visual graphical location way – nifty.
I’ve talked before about Rugby here, and Nelsons role as the birthplace of the game in New Zealand, so it was timely to see it featured on the page as above.
The site definitely does embrace internet technology and that may have had quite a bit to do with the award I feel.
Moving forward…….
the site has more in the pipeline for the future as the slide above shows.
And after just six months of operation (commenced Feb 09) its plain to see the site is starting to get used as it was intended.
Well done to all the hard working staff, many of whom have been on board since a need for such a site was identified back in 2006.
Go here for The Prow site.
Go here for The Prows submission (in Powerpoint format) to the 3M Awards.
October 22 2009 | General and Nelson and Technology | No Comments »
