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Annual Conference

Queers & Allies Round Table Advocacy Award

Honoring exceptionalism in uplifting the LGBTQIA+ community through education, advocacy and outreach.
Established in 2025, The Queers & Allies Round Table Advocacy Award recognizes an individual or organization for their relevant advocacy for the LGBTQIA+ community. The annual award is administered by Queers & Allies Round Table.

The award includes a commemorative plaque and recognition at a Q&A RT program/event at Annual Conference. The plaque will be mailed if unable to attend either event.

Purpose

The Q&A Award recognizes an individual or organization that has shown exceptionalism in uplifting and honoring the LGBTQIA+ community through recent or ongoing efforts in education, advocacy, and/or outreach. This work includes but is not limited to: 

  • Library programming – educational or social that supports the LGBTQIA+ community
  • Community/library partnerships to provide services or programming
  • Facilitating educational programming for library staff
  • Relevant published works or research focused on libraries and/or literacy (i.e., intersection of LGBTQIA+ identities and censorship, effective methods for supporting LGBTQIA+ staff, impact of representation in literature)
  • Local, state or national advocacy for LGBTQIA+ communities, especially when focused on libraries, censorship, education, equitable access to information, and fairness and discrimination in the library workplace

  • May NOT be nominated while serving as a Q&A RT officer
  • Must be a TLA member OR nominated by a TLA member
    • TLA members may be nominated by any resident of the State of Texas: self, school administrators, students, teachers, librarians, library board members, Friends of the Library members, parents, patrons, etc.
    • Non-TLA members must be nominated by a TLA member. 
  • The nominee’s work – regardless of medium – must impact the LGBTQIA+ community in Texas

Eligible applications are evaluated based on the following criteria:

  • Clear intent for their work to support the LGBTQIA+ community
  • Relevancy to education, advocacy and/or outreach
  • Frequency or length of the nominee’s support for the LGBTQIA+ community
  • Recency of work (If nominating one-off events/projects, publications, research, we suggest that the conclusion date be within the past 2 years and encourage the nominator to reflect on any impacts past the conclusion date)
  • Demonstrated impact of work (i.e. attendance or audience, services provided, feedback, engagement with content created, changes/improvements in workplace)

  • Nominations must be made through the online form and received by the January 15th deadline.
  • TLA members can nominate an unlimited number of potential recipients. 
  • Self-nominations are encouraged. If nominating someone else, you must provide their contact information. The committee may reach out to them for additional details, and we encourage you to inform the nominee. 
  • At minimum, you must be prepared to describe the nominee’s work, its impact and relevancy to the purpose of the Q&A Advocacy Award. 
  • For submissions relating to publications, online presence or in-person advocacy, be prepared to share supplemental documentation through links, file uploads or a Google Drive folder. Below are examples of when this documentation would be necessary or optional: 
    • Necessary. If it is an author/work that is being nominated, be prepared to provide identifying information (i.e. author, title, publisher, price, ISBN or DOI) and an annotation specifying those qualities that justify the title for consideration of the awards.
    • Necessary. For submissions related to online or in-person advocacy, be prepared to provide relevant links or uploads (i.e. social media, press coverage, video recordings, website links). 
    • Optional. For submission related to programming, training, or workplace improvements, supplemental material may enhance the submission, but are not required.
  • If no nominations are received, the committee may (1) identify an eligible and deserving individual or organization and request their consent to receive the award or (2) not issue an award that year.

The committee will consist of the Q&A RT Chair and four volunteers from Q&A RT membership, to equal 5 members on the committee. Input may be solicited from those in the field, but the committee will be responsible for the final selection. Nominations are due January 15th each year.

A new committee will be charged for the selection of the recipient for each annual award, which will always consist of the Q&A RT Chair and four volunteers from the Q&A RT membership. 

All nominated individuals and correlating information is confidential. All committee meetings and discussions, including electronic discussions, are closed to Q&A RT and TLA membership and the general public.

Words of Encouragement

This award is NEW! The 2026 winner will be the first ever recipient of Q&A’s Advocacy Award. While that’s quite an honor, it may feel daunting to submit without previous winners to reference. You are encouraged to nominate any eligible work that aligns with the purpose of the award. Advocacy comes in many forms, and we want to hear from you!