Donald E. Wilson, Director of C.W. Post School Library Media Program, Wins 2007 LDA Award

Veteran librarian & educator honored for activism & advocacy

Brookville, N.Y. – Donald E. Wilson, director of the School Library Media Program at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, is the 2007 winner of the LDA Award, Long Island’s premier recognition of library advocacy.

A selection committee appointed by the Nassau County Library Association and the Suffolk County Library Association noted Wilson’s service to the library community as a school librarian, professor of library science and program director at the Palmer School of Library and Information Science at C.W. Post.

“The committee took special cognizance of the work that this quiet, unassuming leader has done to improve the stature and activities of a number of local, statewide and national library organizations,” said Arthur Friedman, chairman of the Directory Committee of the Nassau County Library Association. “For more than 40 years, Don Wilson has been an effective librarian, educator extraordinaire, and mentor to colleagues throughout the profession.  Fortunately, he shows no signs of slowing down or giving up the tasks that he loves so well.”

The LDA Award was created in 1978 by Andrew Ippolito, founder of LDA Publishers Inc., to call attention to the importance of libraries and library people on Long Island. Annually an individual is selected who has enriched the field of librarianship.  Librarians, trustees, support staff, friends of the library, vendors and publishers are all eligible.

Wilson joined the faculty of the Palmer School as an adjunct in 1988. He has been a full time school media specialist in the Island Trees School District in Levittown, N.Y. since 1967, where he was at the center of a 1982 censorship controversy in which the U.S. Supreme Court limited the power of school boards to remove books they considered offensive from school libraries. Wilson has been a part-time public librarian at numerous libraries in Nassau and Suffolk counties.

His interests are bibliotherapy for children, the literature of the Holocaust and tolerance and Native American literature for children and young adults, especially Long Island Native American themes, legends, people and history. He is also a member of the Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

Posted: May 9, 2007