Melisa Pressley Wins NCLA Award
Black Mountain’s own Melisa Pressley was recently presented with the North Carolina Library Association’s prestigious Leadership Institute Award. This competitive award, announced at the 65th NCLA Biennial Conference, recognized her work developing a program to start a new library association that will represent the western district of our state. In Melisa’s words, “Often, those of us in western North Carolina don’t get the opportunity to get involved in advanced NCLA roles because we are so far from the Triangle and Triad, where the grad schools are located. I’d like to see an organization that supports those of us in WNC.”
In addition to receiving this award, Melisa also gave a presentation on creating community through art programs. Melisa highlighted the Black Mountain Library’s work with the Black Mountain Center for the Arts and the Friends of the Black Mountain Library. Melisa explained, “This low-risk, high-yield endeavor has brought the wider Black Mountain community artists together with professional artists to create literary-related art through free instructional workshops and learning opportunities. I think it’s important to show the quality of work we do in Buncombe County Public Libraries.”