Skip to main content

People

Appointments & Retirements

Aschliman, Jillian

Bettendorf (Iowa) Public Library appointed Jillian Aschliman director in April.

September 1, 2021
Chartier, Courtney

Courtney Chartier joined Columbia University Libraries in New York City as director of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library in July.

September 1, 2021
Dos, DeLa

The Association of Research Libraries appointed DeLa Dos senior director of diversity, equity, and inclusion, effective June 7.

September 1, 2021
Hegna, Megan

March 1 Megan M. H. Hegna joined Patterson Library in Westfield, New York, as director.

September 1, 2021
Hobson, Heidi

Heidi Hobson joined Akron (Colo.) Public Library as director in February.

September 1, 2021

View more

At ALA

Burton, Alice

Development Communications Associate Alice Burton left ALA June 16.

September 1, 2021
Griffin, Megan

Megan Griffin, senior program officer for the Association of College and Research Libraries, left ALA June 25.

September 1, 2021
Prellwitz, Wendy

Gwendolyn “Wendy” Prellwitz, assistant director for recruitment and retention in the Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services (ODLOS), left ALA June 4.

September 1, 2021
Strowder, Kevin

Kevin D. Strowder began as director of ODLOS June 21.

September 1, 2021
Brown, Yumeka

Yumeka Brown, program officer for the Freedom to Read Foundation and the Merritt Fund, left ALA April 23.

July 19, 2021

View more

Cited

Alford, Larry

Larry Alford, chief librarian at University of Toronto Libraries, received the Canadian Association of Research Libraries Award for Distinguished Service to Research Librarianship May 18.

September 1, 2021
Kear, Robin

Robin Kear, liaison librarian in research and educational support at University of Pittsburgh, became the first librarian elected university senate president, effective July 1.

September 1, 2021
California Library Association

The California Library Association has inducted Michael Buckland, professor emeritus and former dean of University of California, Berkeley; the late poet and former librarian at San Francisco Public Library Hiroshi Kashiwagi; and Bonny White, retired deputy director of Marin County Free Library, into the California Library Hall of Fame.

July 19, 2021
Hartford Public Library

Hartford Public Library’s Hartford History Center received an Award of Merit from the Connecticut League of History Organizations for its online exhibit “October 1920,” about the centennial of women’s suffrage.

July 19, 2021
Ewbank, Ann

Ann Ewbank, associate professor and head of the Department of Education at Montana State University in Bozeman, received the university’s Anna K. Fridley Phi Kappa Phi Distinguished Teaching Award January 19.

May 10, 2021

View more

Obituaries

Croft, Betty Mary Ellen

Betty Mary Ellen Croft, 94, former head of the cataloging department at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and director of Northwest Missouri State University Library in Maryville, died April 9.

September 1, 2021
Haas, Leslie

Leslie M. Haas, 54, dean of library services at Fort Hays State University (FHSU) in Hays, Kansas, died June 10. Haas joined FHSU in 2020 after working at Georgia Southern Uni-versity in Statesboro; Zayed University in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; Loyola University Chicago; University of Utah in Salt Lake City; Kent (Ohio) State University; and Texas A&M University in College Station.

September 1, 2021
Henderson, William

William T Henderson, 90, who served as acquisitions librarian at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago and preservation librarian at UIUC, died June 11, 2020. Henderson was an American Library Association (ALA) life member and an early implementer of automation for bindery efforts. He and his wife Kathryn (also an LIS instructor) team-taught preservation courses at UIUC. In 2014 Beta Phi Mu’s Alpha Chapter established the Kathryn Luther and William T Henderson Award to honor them.

September 1, 2021
Minudri, Regina

Regina Minudri, 84, director of Berkeley (Calif.) Public Library from 1977 until her 1994 retirement, died June 18. After California’s Proposition 13 in 1978 reduced public library financing, she became the first library director in the state to secure tax funding through voter approval in 1980. She also started Berkeley’s Tool Lending Library, developed a citywide community information model, and established a library-based adult literacy program. She served as California Library Association president 1981–1982 and ALA president 1986–1987 and was elected to the California Library Hall of Fame in 2012.

September 1, 2021
Mueller, Elizabeth

Elizabeth Ann Mueller, 86, director of Appalachian Regional Library in North Carolina until retiring in 2000, died May 24. She previously served as consulting services director for Chicago Suburban Library System in Burr Ridge, Illinois, and was named the Illinois Library Association’s Librarian of the Year in 1993.

September 1, 2021

View more

Send notices and photos to Amy Carlton, acarlton@ala.org.

Latest Library Links

12h

The American Library Association (ALA) announced the return of the Spectrum Doctoral Fellowship Program, which seeks to recruit diverse LIS faculty members. The program, to be run in partnership with University of South Carolina’s School of Information Science, will recruit a cohort of 8-10 racially and ethnically diverse doctoral students focused on advancing racial equity and social justice in library and information science curricula. “There have been many discussions about the lack of diversity in the profession, and that includes the classrooms as well,” said Kevin Strowder, director of ALA’s Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services, in an October 14 statement. An information session for the fellowship will take place November 3; applications for the program open November 4.

ALA's Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services, Oct. 14
12h

After 10 years of renovations, construction has been completed on the Richelieu site of the National Library of France (formerly known as Bibliotheque du Roi) in Paris. Improvements to the 300-year-old campus, known for its arts and heritage collections, include façade restoration, an interior garden installation, and facilities maintenance. Though the library has maintained hours during construction, the site is expected to fully reopen to the public in summer 2022.

ArchDaily, Oct. 13
13h

Kristen A. Graham writes: “The Philadelphia School District, with 200-plus schools, employed 176 certified school librarians in 1991. Today, that number is fewer than 10. Philadelphia has the worst ratio of school librarians in the country. Building 21’s new homespun library has no budget, no librarian, and was built entirely with used and new books donated or purchased cheaply at yard sales or through online marketplace sites. Though it lacks computers, a digital circulation system, or any of the sophisticated bells and whistles that are the hallmarks of better-resourced schools, the Building 21 library feels like a gift, says Simone Burrell, a recent graduate.”

Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 16; Jan. 24, 2020
13h

Melissa Stewart and Marlene Correia write: “So often educators favor fiction for read-alouds, book talks, book clubs, classroom instruction, and special assignments. They seem to believe that young readers prefer fiction, and yet wide-ranging research clearly shows that many students enjoy nonfiction as much as or more than fiction. To help students make sense of the wide world of nonfiction, we advocate the Five Kinds of Nonfiction classification system.”

MiddleWeb, Oct. 13
15h

Suzie Glassman writes: “My daughter is part of the 15–20% of students and adults living with a language-based learning disability. Once we diagnosed her dyslexia, I understood she needed the help of assistive technology to learn at a rate on par with her classmates, but I wasn’t sure where to start. In honor of Dyslexia Awareness Month this October, I reached out to several assistive technology experts to find out what technology they recommend for facilitating and improving reading, writing, spelling, and math.”

Wired, Oct. 16; International Dyslexia Association
16h

The Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums (ATALM) has received $3.6 million from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) under the American Rescue Plan to help Native cultural organizations recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. On October 18, ATALM and NEH announced in a press release that this money has been earmarked for subgrants for up to 175 Native cultural institutions and their partners. Awards will range from $5,000 to $50,000 and may be used to rehire furloughed employees, prepare facilities for reopening, document cultural practices, and create new exhibits and programs. Applications open October 20.

Association for Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums, Oct. 18
17h

K. W. Colyard writes: “The most influential sci-fi books of all time have shaped not just science fiction and its myriad subgenres, but horror, fantasy, and manga, as well. Filmmakers have drawn inspiration for the stories between their covers, and real-world STEM developments have been made in their names. Without these books, for better or worse, our world would not be what it is today.”

Book Riot, Oct. 12

View more Latest Library Links