The Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) Library for the Blind Board announced that Frank Kurt Cylke, director of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, was the inaugural recipient of the Dr. Dayton M. Forman Memorial Award. This annual award, introduced in 1996, is offered in memory of Dayton M. Forman, a humanitarian and longstanding CNIB volunteer leader. It recognizes outstanding leadership in the advancement of library and information services for blind and visually impaired Canadians.
The award is a silver medal bearing the likeness of Dr. Forman and a suitable inscription in print and braille. Mr. Cylke was honored at a special award presentation event, hosted by the chair of the CNIB Library Board, at the annual Canadian Library Association Conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on June 8.
Announcing the award, Nancy Campbell, chair of the CNIB Library Board, said, "Kurt Cylke has distinguished himself in Canada and throughout the world as a library leader who has made a difference for hundreds of thousands of people who are unable to read print." She highlighted Mr. Cylke's leadership in negotiating and obtaining distribution rights for an estimated 70 percent of the unabridged books in braille and audio formats available for blind and print-disabled people to borrow from libraries across Canada. Among many other significant accomplishments, Mr. Cylke conceived and has overseen the development of a database of library materials available in alternative format from libraries around the world, enabling ready access to these materials through interlibrary loan.
Euclid Herie, president and chief executive officer of CNIB, said "There can only be one first. Kurt, we are all agreed that no one person has earned the respect and merit commensurate with this award more than your contribution to library services for the blind in your country, Canada, and throughout the English-speaking and developing world. In a conversation with Joan Forman on Sunday afternoon, she expressed her delight at your selection with the comment that 'it would have been Dayton's choice.' There can be no greater tribute than that personal endorsement, and so I am sharing that with you along with my own enduring respect for your contribution and the excitement that there will be a very public and permanent recognition on the part of the CNIB and your many friends and colleagues."
In 1994 Mr. Cylke was the choice to receive the Joseph W. Lippincott Award, bestowed by the American Library Association (ALA) for a lifetime of distinguished librarianship. The award was presented during the ALA Annual Meeting in Miami Beach.
Under Mr. Cylke's direction, the number of users of Library of Congress services has increased to more than 750,000 persons, ranging in age from preschool to over 100. The budget of NLS has grown from $9.9 million in fiscal 1973, when Mr. Cylke was named director, to almost $45 million in fiscal 1996. He joined the Library in 1970 as executive director of the Federal Library Committee (now called Federal Library and Information Center Committee).