Charlotte County Libraries & History

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The Internet Archive Hero Award is an annual award that recognizes those who have exhibited leadership in making information available for digital learners all over the world. Previous recipients have included librarian and professor of law Michelle Wu, Phillips Academy, the Biodiversity Heritage Library, and the Grateful Dead.

This year, we were looking for libraries and librarians who rose to the challenge—this was the year that libraries and librarians have been needed like never before. We wanted to acknowledge the hard work of people who went above and beyond to meet the needs of their communities.

Kanta and Lisa both exemplify the spirit of an Internet Archive Hero:

They helped both of their organizations become early phone number database adopters of Controlled Digital Lending in 2019. Of course no one knew it at the time, but that early move helped their patrons stay connected to resources throughout library closures of 2020 and 2021 by already having tens of thousands of digitized books available through each library’s participation in the Internet Archive’s Open Libraries program.


They donated collections to the Internet Archive that no longer fit their library’s local collection development priorities, so that we could preserve and digitize the books, and make them available to digital learners everywhere. You can learn more about the theater books donated from Hamilton Public Library and the 30,000 books donated by Milton Public Library.
They were resources to their professional networks, acting as a point of reference for other librarians interested in learning more about Controlled Digital Lending.