The Connecticut League of Museums (CLM) has awarded the library a 2024 Award of Merit for The Brubeck Collection’s Digital Archive. The awards recognize excellence in museum work by individuals and organizations in Connecticut.
“The committee felt this was a great example of a digital project providing access to an incredible wealth of historical materials useful to a wide swath of people, while also elevating the cultural impact of music and music history,” CLM Executive Director Amrys Williams wrote in a letter to Wilton Library.
The Connecticut League of Museums’ annual Awards of Merit were presented at a ceremony held on Tuesday, Oct. 22 at the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks. The Brubeck Collection’s Curator Michael Bellacosa and Archivist Julie Hughes accepted the award on behalf of Wilton Library. This year’s other awardees included historical societies and history and art museums of various sizes across the state.
“We are honored to receive this prestigious award from the Connecticut League of Museums. The Brubeck Collection is one of the world’s premier jazz archives, and we are extremely proud of our new digital archive which we launched in April,” Bellacosa said. “In the pre-networked age, a public library was the intermediary for bringing the world to a town; now, however, in the networked age, a public library can be the intermediary for bringing a town to the world. Dave Brubeck and his music are one of Wilton’s treasures, which we are so pleased to share. We would like to thank the Brubeck family for all of their support. And we could never have accomplished this without the hard work over 18 months of Thomas Kozak, the library’s head of technology, Julie Hughes, our archivist, and our database and website design consultants at Whirl-i-Gig.”
