Award winning Drag Queen Storytime

We are incredibly proud to announce that the eight Durham Region public libraries and Durham CAS are the recipients of this year’s Les Fowlie Award for Intellectual Freedom and the Joyce Cunningham Award presented by the Ontario Library Association.

Thank you to all eight of libraries who host these important events. This program would not exist without the dedication and commitment of the staff and board members of all of these libraries: Pickering Public Library, Ajax Public Library, Whitby Public Library, Oshawa Public Libraries, Clarington Library and Museums and Archives, Scugog Public Library, and Uxbridge Public Library, Brock Libraries.

The Les Fowlie Intellectual Freedom Award recognizes the courage shown by individuals and organizations in defending the rights of library patrons to full access to information. The Ontario Library Boards’ Association’s Joyce Cunningham Award honours a collaborative effort that demonstrates a high level of collaboration and innovation to produce outstanding results. 

This recognition is an incredible validation of the imortant and challenging work that we and the performers do. We want to emphasize our incredible gratitude for the drag queens who show up for the chidlren, youth and familes — often in the face of adversity — and make these events fabulous!

In addition to the awards, staff from Durham CAS and three of the libraries presented at the conference on the collaboration that has created five years of this wonderful program. We hope this encourages similar initiatives at libraries and other community partners across Ontario.

For more information contact: Andrea Maenza, Strategic Communications Specialist.