UWM School of Information Studies alumnus Jamar Rahming was recently named Medium Nonprofit CEO of the Year by the Delaware Business Times. Rahming (MLIS ’08) is the executive director and CEO of the Wilmington Public Library.
The library, which serves more than 200,000 patrons annually, has become well-known for the “transformative events,” according to an article about the award.
Rahming was cited for the innovative programs, partnerships and community outreach he established at the library since he became executive director in 2018. He gave credit to a strong library team for the success of the efforts. Guests and speakers have included Ana Navarro, Misty Copeland, Omari Hardwick, Dolly Parton, Angela Davis, LaVar Burton, Pam Grier, Anthony Ray Hinton, Jennifer Lewis, Dennis Rodman and Malcolm Jamal Warner. The library also organized a cast reunion of “A Different World.”
In 2023, the Library Journal named Rahming one of its 2023 Movers & Shakers in the Community Builder category.
Rahming told the Business Times that he became interested in a library career as a latchkey child in inner city Denver.
“The public library was a sanctuary, a place of refuge for me,” he said. “Books gave me an opportunity to travel anywhere I wanted to travel. I decided that would be the perfect career path for me.”
The relationship between literacy and liberation was important to him as a Black man Rahming told the Business Times. “We were denied the right to read and when you’re denied something, there must be power behind that. I have not met one well-read person that was not successful in life.”
When he received the Library Journal award, Rahming said he was proud of the fact that a number of the library’s capacity-crowd events have drawn residents from every zip code, socioeconomic class, race, and demographic that the library serves.
Bringing together pop culture, the arts and humanities in the library helps create social cohesion, he said. “It builds bridges; it brings people together because it’s something that we all agree on.”