BPL's Catherine Champion wins ALA Rainbow Round Table's Newlen-Symons Award for Excellence

Catherine Oseas Champion is BPL's assistant archivist. 

Catherine Oseas Champion, the Birmingham Public Library's assistant archivist, has been named 2022 winner of the American Library Association (ALA) Rainbow Round Table's Newlen-Symons Award for Excellence. 

Presented by the Rainbow Round Table (RRT), the Newlen-Symons Award honors a librarian, library staff member, library, library board, and/or library friends group who have designed programs and/or initiatives responsive to the needs of the LGBTQIA+ community. 

The Rainbow Round Table will present the award to Catherine during the ALA Annual Conference on Monday, June 27 in Washington D.C. 

Kathleen Breitenbach, Rainbow Round Table Chair, said of Catherine: 

"The Rainbow Round Table Executive Board read of your in-depth work at the Birmingham Public Library, your connections with numerous local organizations, and your efforts to maintain and archive important historical materials. One of your colleagues even said about a course on local queer history, "without her support, the course would not have been possible, much less successful."

"We are beyond grateful for your hard work preserving local queer history, making it accessible, and teaching others about it, how to see it, and how to preserve it," Breitenbach added. 

More information about the Newlen-Symons Award is available at https://www.ala.org/rt/rrt/awards/newlen-symons-award-excellence-serving-glbt-community

Catherine said she is honored and humbled to be receiving the Newlen-Symons Award for Excellence.

"This award is so important to recognizing and lifting collections in the LGBTQIA+ community," she said. "I am so thankful to be a part of the team that provides access to these collections. This wouldn't be possible without partners like Jim Baggett and Connor Marullo at BPL, Joshua Burford and Maigen Sullivan at the Invisible Histories Project, professors like John Giggie at University of Alabama, who have curated academic courses to delve into these histories, and students like Crystal Stone, who make use of the materials for unique and innovative research. 

Catherine added she is delighted to see these collections get the recognition they deserve "and cannot wait for more collections to take their place in the Birmingham Public Library Department of Archives and Manuscripts.

"To save our history, we must share our stories. To save our stories, we must share our history," she said.