Library Director Cannon Named Creative Loafing's Local Hero, 2001

Cannon, the Executive Director of the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, has had a busy year and, more important for the sake of this award, a very productive year in which he's done a lot of good for the community. First, he gave a home to Charlotte's fledgling Novello Festival Press, which will put more than 100 writers in print in its first year. Second, the library's new Virtual Village is the kind of amazing gift to the community you wish every public institution was interested in getting involved with. And third, Cannon has been fighting the good fight against Martin Davis ("the dirty book guy") and others who are using Davis' obsession to get the library to back down and remove "objectionable" materials from our library. During the past year, this became a huge ugly issue that library opponents are using to try to discredit (and de-fund?) one of Charlotte's most innovative and broad-based institutions.

Despite Charlotte's usual political spinelessness, Cannon is doing something remarkable and important, and he's doing it with class — and without grandstanding, posturing, or any or any of the other stuff we usually see from some of our "leaders."