Louise Canter of Villa Hills has been selected as the Kentucky Public Library Association’s 2015 recipient of the James E. Gugeler Outstanding Library Trustee Award.
Louise has been involved with the Kenton County Public Library for many years. She began volunteering for the library on its foundation board in the early 2000s.
Always full of energy, ideas and enthusiasm for what the library was doing, Louise quickly became a candidate for the library’s Board of Trustees and was appointed in 2010. A professional librarian herself, she brought a new perspective to the library board in the ways libraries operate and function.
Louise currently serves as the vice president for the library’s Board of Trustees. She has also served as secretary. During her time with the foundation board, she led the charge in one of the Foundation’s annual events, A Taste of Kenton County. In this capacity, she secured silent auction items, sold tickets, helped with volunteers and promoted the event relentlessly. She continued in this capacity even as she segued off the foundation board and onto the Board of Trustees.
During her time as a trustees, Louise has been involved in a vast array of projects. Some projects involve advocacy, such as participating in Library Legislative Day each year with her yellow scarf, and others are a bit more intense.
In the past few years, Louise and the board spearheaded the renovation and expansion of Northern Kentucky’s oldest functioning library, the Covington Branch. Built in 1973, and while the building was structurally sound nearly every part of the Covington Branch’s infrastructure needed to be improved or replaced to brought up to code. This included the HVAC system, the roof, the electrical system, elevator, stairwells that did not meet code and the installation of a sprinkler system in the building (which it lacked). The board also needed to determine how to expand the building in the land-locked environment while still offering free parking in its lot. Twenty-four months later and few hurdles jumped, the newly expanded and renovated Covington Library opened with a celebratory ribbon cutting and festivities for all.
Under Louise’s tenure, the Kenton County Public Library has been the recipient of many awards and honors. Notably it has been repeatedly named as the number one ranked No. 1 in the state of Kentucky according to the HAPLR Index in 2008, 2009 and 2010. Additionally, in both 2013 and 2014, the library has been given a four star rating by Library Journal, the only library in the state to have received this distinction.
“Louise is a wonderful advocate for not only the Kenton County Public Library, but for libraries and librarians across the state,” said the library’s executive director Dave Schroeder. “In addition to her participation in Legislative Day, she is on the State Advisory Board for Certification. In this role, Louise brings her depth of knowledge as a librarian and a trustee to her work.”
Louise’s library experience spans from coast to coast. She has worked or volunteered for both school and university libraries in addition to public libraries from New York to Tacoma, Washington.
“We are grateful that Louise’s travels have brought her to Northern Kentucky. Her passion, experience and enthusiasm for libraries and all they do shine through in her work as a member of the Kenton County Public Library Board of Trustees,” Schroeder said.
From Kenton County Public Library