Pun to Step Away from ALA Presidency

June 14, 2024

The American Library Association (ALA) announced June 14 that Raymond Pun will not assume the role of ALA president in 2025–2026 because of health reasons. Pun was elected in early April with 67% of the vote. ALA’s full announcement reads as follows:

“Raymond Pun, in line for the American Library Association presidency, will not assume the role for health reasons. He was to take office as president-elect after ALA’s Annual Conference adjourns in early July, and he would have been president in 2025–2026.

The 2024–2025 Executive Board will fill the vacancy within 30 days of taking office, subject to a confirmation vote by ALA Council. The process to fill the vacant position of president-elect is spelled out in the ALA Bylaws.

Pun was elected 2025–2026 ALA president in the spring, with results announced April 8. He is an academic and research librarian at the Alder Graduate School of Education in Redwood City, California.

‘We are devastated that Ray will be unable to serve as ALA’s member-elected president in 2025–2026,’ ALA President Emily Drabinski said. ‘The most important thing right now is that he takes care of himself and that we respect his privacy. We are grateful for his service to ALA and the entire profession.’

Drabinski has convened a working group, which includes incoming and outgoing board members, to select and vet candidates for recommendation to the 2024–2025 ALA Executive Board. Once a candidate is selected, the decision will go before the 2024–2025 ALA Council for final approval this July.”

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Julia Carpenter writes: “In 2022, the number of people living in prison increased for the first time in nearly 10 years, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The overwhelming majority of the more than 1.23 million incarcerated people in America are serving sentences of one year or more. And many of them say that access to libraries, books, magazines, and other reading material is both sanity-saving and life-preserving. But navigating the prison library system and obtaining books from the outside can be fraught.”

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Endnotes: The Journal of the New Members Round Table, June