ALA Elects New Leaders
Gorman wins ALA presidency; Williams to head AASL
By Walter Minkel -- School Library Journal, 6/1/2004
J. Linda Williams, director of instructional technology and library media services for Anne Arundel County Public Schools in Annapolis, MD, was elected 2005–2006 president of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL). With library media specialist positions being cut nationwide, Williams wants AASL and its membership to step up lobbying efforts to mandate media specialists in K–12 schools. "We need to use action-based research to demonstrate the value of what we do, and we need to communicate better with parents, teachers, and administrators," she says.
The members of the Association for Library Services to Children (ALSC) elected Ellen Fader, youth services coordinator of Multnomah County (OR) Library, as their president-elect. Fader says that ALSC members must "re-envision their services and programs to better serve today's families," and they have to keep their "own skills current so that they are up to this task." To that end, Fader plans to generate new professional development activities that will equip ALSC's members to provide 21st-century services.
Pam Spencer Holley, a library services consultant and former high school librarian, was elected 2005–2006 president of the Young Adult Library Services Association. She plans to foster greater interaction between public and school librarians through a joint task force formed by ALA's three youth divisions. Holley says she will work with this task force to develop "a national model of school-public library partnerships that could be replicated everywhere."
