CHICAGO – Steven Woolfolk, Director of Programming and Marketing at the Kansas City Public Library, has been selected as the recipient of the 2017 Lemony Snicket Prize for Noble Librarians Faced with Adversity. Daniel Handler, also known as Lemony Snicket, will present Woolfolk with the prize during the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference & Exhibition in Chicago, IL. Woolfolk will receive a cash prize and an object from Handler’s private collection.
On May 9, 2016, the Plaza branch of the Kansas City Public Library hosted the inaugural presentation in the Truman and Israel Lecture Series co-presented by the library, the Truman Library Institute and the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City. It was open to the public. All proceeded without incident until the question-and-answer portion, when audience member Jeremy Rothe-Kushel asked a question that was perceived to be provocative. When he attempted to follow up, he was grabbed by one of the private security guards and then by others in the private security detail, which included off-duty police officers. When Woolfolk attempted to intervene and protest the police action in defense of Rothe-Kushel’s basic First Amendment rights, he was arrested and charged with interfering with an arrest, suffering a torn medial collateral ligament in his knee from being kneed in the leg by an officer. The arrests resulted in a flurry of public discussion on the relationship between the library and its position as First Amendment defender.
