Fun things that come in sixes: strings on a guitar, washboard abs, sides on a die, senses (if you’re Haley Joel Osment), and our LibraryWorks’ Modern Library Awards!

We’re thrilled to receive our sixth consecutive Platinum Award in 2021 for Transparent Language Online.

The Modern Library Awards (MLAs) are like the People’s Choice Awards, but so much better because they’re voted on by librarians. The MLAs were established to recognize the best products and services in the library industry, thanks to the more than 80,000 participating librarians from public, K-12, academic, and special libraries.

Only librarians who have recently used a product or service are permitted to judge it. Each judge scores the product from 1-10 on a series of questions regarding functionality, value, customer service, and beyond.

Awards are given on the following scores:

• Platinum (8.5 – 10.0)
• Gold (7.5 – 8.4)
• Silver (6.50 – 7.4)

For the sixth year in a row, Transparent Language Online has received a Platinum Award, the highest honor possible!

No gathering this year to celebrate, so here’s us getting the Platinum Award last year!

Our Library Programs Manager, Lauren Gancarz, gives credit back to our customers:

“It is an honor to receive this top-ranking award for the sixth year in a row – and we have all of our customers to thank for that. We spend a lot of time during conferences, meetings, trainings, and webinars listening to what our customers like about Transparent Language Online and also what aspects they want to see improved upon. It’s those conversations that allow us to turn feedback into actionable items and make improvements that our customers truly want to see, and we think this award reflects all the great feedback we receive each year.”

Unfortunately, we were not able to travel this year, but that hasn’t stopped us from meeting (virtually!) with library subscribers to get their feedback and improve the learning experience for their communities of diverse learners.

In 2020, your feedback inspired us to:

• Empower learners to set daily learning goals to keep them motivated to learn.
• Expand our ESL collection to include advanced listening and reading courses and expand our collections in six other languages with courses for professionals.
• Improve the mobile experience, including hands-free audio lessons that can be learned on the go.
• Expanding available materials in the Library Marketing Kit, including 90-second videos that can be shared on social media to spread the good word about Transparent Language Online.

This award speaks to the success of that collaborative relationship with our libraries. To our existing library partners, thank you, merci, gracias, 谢谢, and beyond.

To librarians curious about bringing language learning opportunities to your community, we’re excited to speak with you in 2021 and show you what’s new in Transparent Language Online for Libraries.