The National Library and Information System Authority’s Logo and Stationery won the Creative Excellence Award for the Best Below-the-line: Corporate at the Trinidad and Tobago Advertising Award 1999 – 2000. The NALIS logo was designed by AMPLE (All Media Projects Limited) in 2000.

Creative Excellence Award for the Best Below-the-line: Corporate

The NALIS Poster “Open the Book” won the Creative Excellence Award for the Best Below-the-line: Corporate at the Trinidad and Tobago Advertising Award 2000-2001.

In 2004, NALIS was the winner of the Prime Minister’s Innovating for Service Excellence Award 2004 – Making a Difference to People – The Social Inclusion Award for services to the blind and visually impaired persons in the society.

Since 2001, NALIS has facilitated training programmes to the visually impaired that give independence through technology. At the National Library of Trinidad and Tobago, rooms in the Children’s Library and Adult Library are furnished with equipment for the blind and visually impaired. Recently the Heritage Library was the beneficiary of similar equipment through the sponsorship of Republic Bank.

The Public Affairs Unit of the United States Embassy also created a visually impaired persons unit at the Scarborough Regional Library, Signal Hill Senior Comprehensive School, Tobago as part of its American Corner. Twenty-three (23) persons recently graduated in the use of assistive technology at the National Library, in partnership with the Torres Foundation.

The technology employed includes the use of JAWS for Windows software which uses synthetic speech to verbalise screen output for computer users. This programme is multilingual and allows for information to be read in character, word, line and full screen formats.

The Magic Professional Screen Magnifier for those with low vision, the Braille Embosser, which produces hard copy Braille, and the Poet OCR reading machine which reads full text to the visually challenged, are just some of the tools which aid in giving independence to the differently abled in the society.

This facility is like no other in the Caribbean and is ranked among the best internationally. NALIS has been in the forefront offering consultative services to a number of libraries throughout the Caribbean, and was chosen by Microsoft Corporation to represent the region at the Forum for Libraries for the Blind and Print Disabled in Redmond, Washington, USA.

For many in our society, this service provided by NALIS means independence, progress, development and empowerment.

NALIS’ 2008 calendar, insertions and invitation, “Trinidad and Tobago Folklore”, captured the 2008 Advertising Agency Association of Trinidad and Tobago’s (AAATT) Creative Excellence Award in the best Below-the-line: Public Service/Charities category. This award was presented at the AAATT gala function held at the Ocean Pearl in November 2008.

Costaatt presented NALIS with the 2012 Costaatt Partnership Award at the college’s graduation ceremony held on November 17, 2012.

The Costaatt/NALIS partnership, which has spanned almost three decades, continues to support Trinidad and Tobago’s vision of becoming a knowledge-driven society. Working together, these two distinguished institutions “have made a significant contribution to the development of Trinidad and Tobago’s knowledge management capacity through the education and training of a highly competent para-professional workforce.”

In the 1980s, NALIS and the Library Association of Trinidad and Tobago (LATT) developed the Technician’s Diploma programme to train para-professional for library services. In 2000, the diploma programme was upgraded to an Associate in Applied Science (ASS) in Library and Information Studies. A dedicated team of NALIS professionals, including Pamela Benson, former Executive Director of NALIS, worked to ensure that the curriculum, offered by Costaatt, was closely aligned to industry standards. The internship component of the course, conducted at NALIS libraries, provides a tremendous opportunity for students to acquire hands on training in the area of library and information studies.

NALIS executive and professional staff have taught and continue to teach courses at various Costaatt campuses. They have served on institutional programme advisory committees to ensure the continuing relevance of curricula to workplace needs, and most recently, have worked with Costaatt’s faculty to upgrade the Associate Degree in Library and Information Studies to a Bachelor of Library and Information Science (BLIS) degree.

In commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of Independence, the Ministry of Public Administration (MPA) developed the Public Service Excellence Award to award Ministries and Government Agencies that have demonstrated high levels of service excellence. 

An independent evaluation panel, chaired by Dianna Mahabir-Wyatt, visited all the shortlisted ministries/agencies to determine the top three that would receive of the inaugural award. In December 2012 it was announced that the staff of the Arima and Mayaro Public Libraries were joint recipients of the Ministry of Pubic Administration’s top award for Excellence in Service Delivery. The judges were impressed by the quality of service offered by staff at these two libraries. They specifically looked at the level of customer care and the service environment.

In addition, former and current members of NALIS executive staff were recognised for serving the nation with distinction during the past 50 years and awarded for their outstanding contributions to public service: Annette Wallace, former Executive Director, NALIS; Mr. Girdharry Seerattansingh, current Director of the Board of NALIS; and Mrs. Jeanne Roseman, former Director of the Board of NALIS.