Only three people in the country have qualified for the Library Practitioner Certification award from the Western Council of State Librarians, but a rare thing happened recently because two of them are from Safford.

“It was a surprise,” Sally Holguin and Vicki Foote, both librarian assistants at Safford City-Graham Coun-ty Public Library, said about receiving the prestigious librarian award.

The certification comes after 240 hours of training that must be completed within five years. Librarians attend the library institute, which is a three-year program, to receive their six core competencies but also have to seek out other trainings on their own.

In August 2007, Vicki Foote and Sally Holguin received prestigious awards in the library world for their training and experience. Photo by Keri Lunt

Many different areas, such as technology, administration, management, customer service and developing and maintaining collections, are required. The certification is professional, so it is a continual process that must be renewed.

Foote said the institute provides an opportunity for nondegreed librarians to study in an educational environment and become more informed. “We take these classes because we want to be more competent in what we do,” Foote said.

Foote and Holguin have been dubbed the “Safford twins,” because they are constantly working side by side. “A lot of what we do, we do as a team,” Holguin said. This is why when it came down to distributing the award, both the librarians were recommended as recipients of the award.

Foote and Holguin are training to be instructors for statewide databases, and they will train the public, schools and other librarians.

They have taught seniors at Safford High, seniors and staff at Willcox High, and have plans to do the same in Duncan soon.

Foote said it is their responsibility to let everyone in Graham County know about the databases of information libraries have to offer.

Along with their day-to-day duties, the librarians are involved with the Spanish Outreach program and the Early Literacy program. Both said their work is very humbling and rewarding, and the other library staff makes their job easier and worthwhile.

Library Director Jan Elliott said the certification represents a high level of training and experience that is reconized in the library world in 21 Western states.