The John Cotton Dana Award for excellence in public relations has been awarded to the Pasco County Library System for its innovative and highly popular teen event, Rockus Maximus. The John Cotton Dana Award is considered to be the most prestigious of all library awards in the field of public relations.

Six libraries are winners of the John Cotton Dana Library Public Relations Award this year. “The committee was impressed by the high quality of the public relations campaigns by libraries of all types and sizes from across the country,” said JCD committee chair, Linda Holslander. “With reduced budgets and staff, the winning libraries showed creative use of social media and web marketing to convey their messages. In these challenging economic times, effective marketing techniques are essential to communicate the many valuable services and programs provided by libraries to meet the increasing needs of their customers.”

The winning libraries are:

San Francisco, CA – San Francisco Public Library

Seattle, WA – King County Library System

Trenton, NJ – New Jersey State Library

Austin, TX – Westbank Community Library District

Hudson, FL – Pasco County Library System

The award will be presented to representatives of the Pasco County Library System at the annual conference of the American Library Association to be held in Washington, D.C. beginning June 24 through 29, 2010.