CILIP | Medal Sponsorship

Medal Sponsorship

The history of sponsorship of medals.

There is a history of excellent working relations with publishers, authors, illustrators, academics, the media and others since the earliest days of the Youth Libraries Section. This helped make many of the events, publications and conferences reach a high standard. There have also been some more formal and long-term agreements that can be identified in partnership with the Library Association.

The photo above shows authors at the South Bank Ceremony in 1996. They are l-R Michael Coleman, Elizabeth Laird, Melvin Burgess (winning with “Junk”) Jacqueline Wilson and Anne Fine.

Peters Library Service

Peters Bookselling Services began its close relationship with YLG and the Carnegie Greenaway Awards in 1990 when their sponsorship began. The YLG minutes for ‘91 record a vote of thanks to Malcolm Peters for their “magnificent input”.

They made an enormous contribution and brought the awards back into national focus with improved Marketing and Publicity which included annual awards posters, shortlists posters, flyers, postcards, bookmarks and merchandising.

A shortlist party in Birmingham was introduced to be attended by all short listed authors and illustrators together with librarians from across the UK, and a high profile awards ceremony at the South Bank Centre in London was also established to gain maximum media coverage for YLG, the LA and the awards. In 1993 Peters were presented with a Business Sponsorship Incentive Scheme Award in recognition of these achievements, with major sponsorship continuing until 1997.

They continue to support the awards in many ways, not least the Schools Shadowing Scheme which they were instrumental in setting up in 1994, and they remain the official bookseller to the scheme, distributing stock to schools and libraries throughout the country.

Royal Mail

In 1997, The Royal Mail became new sponsors for a year. This coincided and was linked to their stamp promotion. They produced 5 stamps, which featured Britain’s greatest children’s writers who they selected to be CS Lewis, Lewis Carroll, JRR Tolkien, Mary Norton and E Nesbit.

They produced first day covers which illustrated,”” The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”, “The Borrowers”, Through the Looking Glass”, “The Phoenix and the Carpet” and “The Hobbit”. They also produced illustrated airmail letters on the theme of “Northern Lights”, by Phillip Pullman (Carnegie Medal winner in 1995) “The Snow Spider” by Jenny Nimmo (Smarties prize winner) and “The Boggart” by Susan Cooper (Carnegie short listed in 1993).

The Carnegie UK Trust

Although the Carnegie UK Trust no longer focuses on library provision, in 1986 it did help with funding of the commemorative booklet for the Golden Jubilee of the Carnegie Medal. Work with young people is of major importance to them though, so CKG Shadowing did have elements, which they found related to their work. They made a major investment in 1998/99 to fund development of the CKG website for shadowing groups.

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Updated: 06 May 2008

Youth Libraries Group

Medal Sponsorship