Library Journal, the oldest and most respected publication covering the library field, has named our long-time client-partner Queens Borough Public Library the library of the year!  The news will be officially announced in the cover story of the June 15th issue of the magazine (although some details are available now at the library’s website) and at a reception in Chicago in July, during the annual conference of the American Library Association.

LJ’s editor-at-large cited the “abililty of the managers and staff to provide an incredibly diverse set of services and continue the constant modernization of the 62 libraries” in the Queens library system.  Library CEO Thomas Galante listed some of those services: “For homework help, for assistance in finding a job, to prepare to take a professional licensing exam or the citizenhip test, to learn English or to find a healthcare provider that will give a free mammogram and who also speaks Russian – that’s why the community relies on Queens Library.”

Congrats are in order all around — keep up the great work, Queens!

The Giving USA Foundation’s annual philanthropy report, released yesterday, indicates that while giving was down last year, it didn’t go down as much as people thought.  Specifically, it declined by just 2%.  But it was the second year in a row where total giving was more than $300 billion.  So, not bad, all things considered.  NPR’s Morning Edition has a nice summary on their website.

Numbers from our own clients are encouraging too.  Our experienced analytics team just completed a study comparing our August and November 2008 public broadcasting co-op campaigns — the first two campaigns right around the bad economic news breaking.  Overall, there was definitely a dip in August, but November rebounded quite nicely.  Whether that is a trend or not remains to be seen.

(Read on …)

The New York Post very dismissively reported on the “New York Elite’s Kooky Causes” this weekend — from Donna Karan’s efforts to “integrate holistic and conventional medicine and enhance children’s spiritual growth” to Mayor Bloomberg’s daughter’s collection of “lightly used” equestrian clothes to give to the underprivileged –  the Post and its readers were predictably outraged at what they consider the wealthy’s “narcissistic and self indulgent hobbies masquerading as charity.”

Playing the devil’s advocate though, isn’t any grassroots organization thatn identifies a problem — no matter how small — and fills a need, a good one?  Granted, these groups aren’t out to save starving babies or cure diseases (although, social climber Fabian Basabe’s Imaginary Heroes Foundation is out to “promote universal cooperation and advance human achievement”) but they are trying to help someone or something.  Specialization is what makes modern society possible.  You and I might not be into it, but if someone is, why not?

Or am I just being naive?